Melbourne Cup field 2023: In and out - Cruel call for owners

Ladies Man in action.

The New Zealand owners of Melbourne Cup hard-luck horse Ladies Man have revealed they were officially told they were in the race and were celebrating before having that dream ripped away again.

Ladies Man missed a Cup start by one place on Saturday, ending up ranked 25th of the horses trying to gain a Cup start, with only 24 acceptors for the A$8 million classic at Flemington tomorrow.

But a mix-up on Saturday had them planning for the raceday of a lifetime after they were told by racing officials they had gained a start.

Ladies Man went on a Melbourne Cup week roller-coaster last week, being in and out of the Cup as other horses withdrew or were promoted up the rankings.

After he raced below his best, finishing sixth in the Lexus Archer Stakes on Saturday, and the winner Kalapour leapfrogged them in the Cup order, the Ladies Man team were resigned to missing the race.

But they were stunned and elated when they received an email from the host Victorian Racing Club congratulating them on being in the race.

They were still in the owners’ room at Flemington when a VRC official then came across and presented them with a bag containing tickets for tomorrow and Cup memorabilia.

Delighted to have made it into the Cup, they contacted trainer Allan Sharrock, telling him that Ladies Man was back in the race. But the celebrations were short-lived.

The same staff member who presented the Cup owners’ bag to the Ladies Man team returned 20 minutes later to tell them there had been a mistake and apologised.

“It was a very hollow feeling,” said a member of the ownership team.

“First we thought we had just missed the race, then to find out from what we thought was an official source that we were in was just massive, then to have that taken away again was tough.

“We know these things can happen and we feel for the person who delivered the owners’ tickets and bag to us because it almost certainly wouldn’t be their mistake.

“But to get an email congratulating you on being in the race and for it to be wrong wasn’t great.”

Sharrock is an old-school Taranaki horseman not known for his raceday emotions but he admitted the mistake left a bitter taste.

“We were just taking stock of it all, thinking how we would drop 9kg for the Cup and how he would be a better horse for Tuesday when we found out about the mistake,” Sharrock told the Herald.

“It was pretty gutting.”

To make matters worse, one of the horses who made the Cup field, Alenquer, was found to have a stone bruise yesterday morning and will have to pass a veterinary examination this morning to be allowed to start in the Cup.

But even if Alenquer or any other horse in the Cup field is withdrawn, Ladies Man won’t get a start, as unlike most races, the Melbourne Cup has no emergency runners who can be promoted into the field.

Ladies Man is likely to start instead in the A$300,000 Queen Elizabeth Stakes at Flemington on Saturday, and it would come with a significant bonus if Ladies Man won, as he was a Melbourne Cup contender who didn’t make the field.

Moore to come

Fair to say superstar jockey Ryan Moore is in form as he jets into Melbourne to ride Cup favourite Vauban tomorrow.

Moore will have flown from Los Angeles to Melbourne overnight after riding at the mammoth two-day Breeders’ Cup meeting at Santa Anita. Moore produced a stunning, rail-hugging ride on Auguste Rodin to win the Breeders’ Cup Turf, the exceptional Irish colt adding the glamour American race to his wins in the English and Irish Derbys.

By the late champion Japanese stallion Deep Impact, Auguste Rodin is set to provide an incredibly lucrative new stallion line for the international breeding and racing operation of Coolmore.

Moore was even unusually talkative by his standards in the post-race interview, so may well arrive in Melbourne in good spirits before teaming up with Vauban, the clear favourite for the Cup at $4.

The Cup is run at 5pm NZ time tomorrow.

The final field for the A$8 million Melbourne Cup to be run at Flemington tomorrow at 5pm is

(horse, barrier draw, weight, jockey):

1. Gold Trip (2) 58.5kg James McDonald

2. Alenquer (9) 56.5kg Damien Oliver

3. Without A Fight (16) 56.5kg Mark Zahra

4. Break Up (18) 55kg Kohei Matsuyama

5. Vauban (3) 55kg Ryan Moore

6. Soulcombe (4) 53.5kg Joao Moreira

7. Absurde (8) 53kg Zac Purton

8. Right You Are (15) 53kg John Allen

9. Vow And Declare (19) 53kg Billy Egan

10. Cleveland (23) 52kg Mick Dee

11. Ashrun (11) 51.5kg Kerrin McEvoy

12. Daqiansweet Junior (12) 51.5kg Daniel Stackhouse

13. Okita Soushi (20) 51.5kg Dylan Gibbons (a)

14. Sheraz (22) 51.5kg Beau Mertens

15. Lastotchka (21) 51kg Craig Williams

16. Magical Lagoon (7) 51kg Mark Du Plessis

17. Military Mission (5) 51kg Rachel King

18. Serpentine (1) 51kg Jye McNeil

19. Virtuous Circle (6) 51kg Craig Newitt

20. More Felons (24) 50.5kg Jamie Kah

21. Future History (13) 50kg Hollie Doyle

22. Interpretation (17) 50kg Teo Nugent

23. Kalapour (14) 50kg Zac Lloyd (a)

24. True Marvel (10) 50kg Ben Thompson

Michael Guerin wrote his first nationally published racing articles while still in school and started writing about horse racing and the gambling industry for the Herald as a 20-year-old in 1990. He became the Herald’s Racing Editor in 1995 and covers the world’s biggest horse racing carnivals.