October
NovemberAmericain tragedy
The tumult and shouting has died down from last week’s exciting Melbourne Cup. The political correctness has been said and done by the media et al. These days jockeys are chastised with comments along the lines of, "It wasn’t his best ride." This is a euphemism for, "He rode a very poorly judged race." You do hear, at times, "pilot error" used.
My preferred terminology is along the lines of the old Aussie racing parlance, i.e., "He slaughtered it."
Now, there’s no suggestion at all that Gerald Mosse "pulled up" Americain in the Cup. Not for one moment. It wasn’t as if he didn’t have a background riding the horse. He was his regular rider.
The jockey said the state of the track (not soft enough) was against Americain and the extra weight caught up with him in the last 50 metres. Reasonable explanations in my view. The horse did come down the "right" part of the track, I’ll admit that.
But we all make mistakes and experienced jockey Mosse certainly made one last week on the favourite. Perhaps some knowledgeable racing person can tell me the name of the last horse that came from last (or very close to it) on the point of the turn to win the Melbourne Cup.
He set Americain an impossible task and he still nearly won (beaten less than 1½ lengths.
Yes, I am talking through my pocket. Don’t all punters?
Blairgowrie (Vic)