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Racing: Trainer thinks he has Melbourne Cup formula

NZ Herald

5 Nov, 2018 04:00 PM5 mins to read

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James McDonald wins the Herbert Power Stakes aboard Yucatan last month. Photo / Quentin Langfree

World champion trainer Aidan O'Brien suspects he might have found the right formula to win himself a Melbourne Cup, declaring circumstances this year had Yucatan perfectly positioned to win today's great race at Flemington.

O'Brien believes Yucatan comes into the A$7.3 million classic in the right condition, with a love

"It's very hard to make a plan with a horse to get him into a handicap but what we find is if you race them honestly and open the whole time, sometimes circumstances can work for you and at the end of the year you're in that nice race at a nice weight naturally," O'Brien says.

"He went through the whole year and we thought if he ended up at the end of the year if things hadn't fallen for him we thought that the Melbourne Cup would suit him well.

"He's a horse that we couldn't really get 100 per cent through the whole year but he was still running nice races in those group races.

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"The way it fell it looked like he was going to be a horse that would be really suited in the Melbourne Cup.

"The Melbourne Cup came and he was too low (in the weights) - he couldn't get in - so we had to run him (in the Herbert Power Stakes) and he had to win to get in and so we ran him and we saw what happened.

"We didn't run him again because we felt that he was in on the perfect mark.

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"He loves fast ground and another reason he might not have got that ever there (Europe). The better the ground, the better his chance.

"Everything seems to be going well so it will be very interesting to see with him."

O'Brien has saddled nine runners in the Melbourne Cup.

He came closest last year when Johannes Vermeer was run down late by his son Joseph's horse Rekindling. "It is a very difficult race to win," O'Brien said. "You have to have a horse in on a nice mark. You have to have class and you have to stay.

"Yucatan looks to be on a very good mark. Rostropovich looks to be in on a very good mark. We're happy with Cliffs Of Moher but he's a very well exposed horse."

Rostropovich, with 51kg, is half a kilogram under the weight Rekindling carried in the race when a northern hemisphere three-year-old.

"He was a horse that we always thought would stay forward in a mile and a half," O'Brien said.

"He seems to be on a lovely weight. When he went down we felt we needed to give him a run to sharpen him up and that's why we ran him at Moonee Valley (Cox Plate) over a mile and a quarter.

"Ryan (Moore), who rode him there, was very happy with him and felt that obviously going further would suit him.

"Wayne (Lordan) is going down to ride him. He is just perfect in on the bottom (weight)." O'Brien is wary that The Cliffsofmoher might find his handicap of 56.5kg a task.

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"He obviously is a very classy horse," he said.

"He has plenty of weight but we were very happy with his two runs and we're looking forward to seeing how we go.

"The Melbourne Cup is a tough, difficult race and you are never sure what horse is going to be suited or what is going to work but we always thought that he's a horse that could run a big race in it.

"Ryan will probably take his time on him and we'll see what will happen."

• Kiwi jockey James McDonald has a golden opportunity to win Australasia's greatest race today when he partners Yucatan in the Melbourne Cup.

Victory in the two-mile feature would be extra special for the boy from Cambridge, who took all before him as an apprentice jockey in New Zealand before shooting to prominence as a star of the international jockey ranks.

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McDonald will be having his fifth ride in the Melbourne Cup today and hopes he can improve on his placed efforts with Fiorente (second, 2012) and Hartnell (third, 2016).

"It's really satisfying to be on a live chance in the race and he's with the best possible team," McDonald said.