Barriers
The barrier draw can be crucial depending on how a horse races. Wide barriers may suit those runners that like to settle back in the field, while front-runners can expend less energy early in the race if they have an inside draw.
Records show barriers 5 and 11 lead the way in the Melbourne Cup, so that’s a positive sign for stable-mates Royal Diamond and Mutual Regard this year.
Gate 18 looks likely to remain the only barrier (of those still in use) with no success, as outsider Precedence will jump from there.
Rain Lover started from barrier 24 in 1968 but it had little effect on him, winning by eight lengths in then-record time.
He was trained by former coal miner Mick Robins, who only obtained his training licence three months before the Cup.
But he had a champion stayer on his hands, who then repeated the effort a year later under 60.5 kilograms.
Rain Lover is one of only five horses to win the Cup more than once.
Colour
The colour of thoroughbreds is determined by genetics and falls into different categories.
The common colour of bay is the most successful when it comes to Melbourne Cup winners, claiming 65 wins – or 42 per cent of past Cups.
Brown horses (37) and chestnut (34) are battling it out for next best.
Many punters have a soft spot for greys, which have won only six Cups in all and this year are represented by 2013 Caulfield Cup winner Fawkner.
The grey Subzero etched his name in the history books by winning the Cup in 1992, but he became a true racing icon after his retirement.
The placid “Subbie” worked as a clerk of the course horse and also made appearances at charity events and schools, often giving young kids a chance to ride a Melbourne Cup winner.
At 26 years of age and suffering from arthritis, Subzero and his best mate Graham Salisbury still show up in public from time to time.
Earlier this year, he became the first horse to actually be present when inducted into the Australian Racing Hall of Fame.
Sex
In the battle of the sexes, there is one undisputed winner and the men simply rule the Cup.
In more than 150 runnings, the race has been won by a female on only 16 occasions – 13 mares (4yo+) and three fillies (3yo). Some greats are among them including Makybe Diva, Let’s Elope and Light Fingers.
This year the fairer sex is represented by My Ambivalent, Unchain My Heart and Lucia Valentina.
The numbers for the girls wouldn’t even be what they are if it weren’t for Makybe Diva adding three to the total from 2003 to 2005.
By 2005 she was in career-best form and had proven herself a weight-for-age champion by winning the Cox Plate.
But a third Cup secured Makybe Diva’s legendary status and soon after owner Tony Santic and trainer Lee Freedman decided there was no better way for her to leave the stage, announcing her retirement.
Breeding
Being a local, born and bred, clearly looks to be an advantage, but the numbers hide a contemporary truth about the changing face of the Cup.
Importing horses to access the world’s best bloodlines is nothing new, but Australian and New Zealand-bred horses dominated the Cup until around the turn of this century. But more recently, they have bred only six of the past 15 winners, and three of the past 10.
Only seven runners in this year’s Cup were bred in the southern hemisphere, as Australian owners and trainers look north in search of their Cup winner.
When Vintage Crop stormed to victory in 1993, he changed the Melbourne Cup into a race of true international stature.
The champion Irish stayer inspired an influx of overseas owners and trainers in search of the Cup’s riches – 11 internationals contest the Cup this year.
Vintage Crop also ran seventh in the 1994 Cup and third in 1995. He has been immortalised in bronze at the Curragh racecourse in Ireland.
Age
Younger does not always mean faster when it comes to the Cup, because some horses take longer to mature – mentally and physically – than others.
Three-year-olds did boast a terrific Cup record – winning more than a quarter of the time – until their run was halted after Skipton in 1941. Times have changed and the winning zone is now very much horses aged four, five and six.
No nine-year-old has triumphed, meaning Red Cadeaux, Royal Diamond and Precedence will have to create history this year to win.
But with an average age of about 6.8, the Cup this year has one of the oldest fields in its history.
Skipton, named after the town in Victoria, is the most recent three-year-old to win the Cup, way back in 1941.
Pub owner John Kitson bought the son of 1935 Cup winner Marabou as a birthday present for his wife Myrtle.
Mrs Kitson, however, felt she brought bad luck to Skipton and wasn’t at Flemington to witness him become the 13th winner of the Victoria Derby-Melbourne Cup double.
Times have changed and it’s rare to see three-year-olds contest the Cup these days, but Nothin’ Leica Dane came close in 1995 – after winning the Derby he ran second to Doriemus in the Cup.
Weight
The Melbourne Cup is a handicap race, so each horse is given a weight that is meant to make the contest as even as possible.
Quite simply, the best horses are given a higher weight – some can still prove too good and prevail, while for others the adage of “weight will stop a train” quite often applies.
Horses with a weight of 50 kilograms or less had the lion’s share of success down the years, but this generally represents a different time when minimum weights could be a lot lower. Because jockeys nowadays are physically bigger, the lowest weight they can safely ride has been raised.
At the other end of the scale, 19 horses have carried the equivalent of 58kg or more to victory, the most recent being three-time champ Makybe Diva (2005).
Phar Lap, whose name ranks alongside Bradman in Australian sporting history, is regarded as the greatest Cup winner of all time.
He contested the Cup three times, finishing third as a three-year-old in 1929 before famously winning under 62.5 kilograms in 1930.
Then thanks to his dominance, Phar Lap was asked to carry 10 stone 10 pounds (68kg) in the 1931 Cup – the highest weight ever carried in the Melbourne Cup.
The Red Terror could only finish eighth under the massive impost, conceding 24.5 kilograms to the winner White Nose.
The last horse to carry at least 58.5kg and win was Think Big in 1975 – a 39-year record Admire Rakti is looking to break this year.
Odds
The majority of winners start at odds of between $4 and $10, but thanks to the size of the field there’s plenty of value to be found up to $20. From there, your chances start to diminish.
Favourites have a fair strike rate in the Cup, winning just over 22 per cent of the time (34 in all), with the most recent being Fiorente at $7 last year.
Only one horse has run as an odds-on favourite in the Cup, and it was the immortal Phar Lap who carried the money of an entire nation when he saluted at the equivalent of $1.73 in 1930.
At the other end of the spectrum, a word of caution to those of you who like to have a dollar on the 100-1 outsider; only three horses have won at triple-figure odds and it’s been a long time between drinks: Old Rowley (1940), Wotan (1936) and The Pearl (1871).
In his younger days Old Rowley was a laughing stock, even to his owner and trainer, because of how slow he was. But over time he proved that slow and steady could win a race, especially over long distances.
Despite having moderate form in Sydney, Old Rowley’s connections decided to have a shot at the Cup in 1940.
The 100-1 chance settled at the back of the field and picked off his rivals as they began to tire, crossing the line a winner by three-quarters of a length to the shock of the Flemington crowd.
Saddlecloths
Saddlecloths are the all-important numbers you have to know when filling out your betting tickets. They are organised from the highest weighted horse (1) to the lowest (24). If two horses have the same weight, then the horses can be listed in alphabetical order.
The field size for the Cup has been restricted to 24 horses for a number of years now, but as many as 39 horses have contested the race (1890) and as few as seven (1863).
Horses carrying the 4 and 12 saddlecloths have most wins with 11 apiece, so the pressure is on Red Cadeaux and Who Shot Thebarman to keep their heads in front.
Lucky number 7 (Seismos) isn’t living up to that description with just two wins, but 18 (Au Revoir) can only boast just one win.
Carbine was the greatest horse of his generation and one of five inaugural inductees into the Racing Hall of Fame, the so-called immortals.
The New Zealand-bred galloper, nicknamed “Old Jack”, won 33 of 43 starts, including the Melbourne Cup in 1890.
The Cup that year holds the record of most runners with 39, and Carbine lumped the massive weight of 10 stone 5 pounds (65.7 kilograms) to victory.
Carbine became a major success as a sire, and more than half of the Cup winners from 1914 to 1978 are his descendants.
Silks
Everyone has a favourite colour. For most Melbourne Cup winners, they’ve left their rivals blue with envy.
Runners with predominately blue jockey silks have won 40 times, with Green Moon carrying the blue, white armbands and cap belonging to owner Lloyd Williams in 2012. Those colours also saw success for Williams with Efficient (2007) and What A Nuisance (1985).
Black (33) and gold or yellow (30) are the next most successful colours worn by jockeys during the Cup’s history.
There’s a fair bit of blue looking at this year’s field, headed by the favourite Admire Rakti.
The famous green and gold stripes of Bart Cummings have saluted in the Cup four times – Red Handed 1967, Think Big 1974, Think Big (with red sleeves) 1975, and Let’s Elope 1991.
The Cups king has also had success with Saintly (1996) and Viewed (2008), who carried the black and white checks, yellow sleeves belonging to good friend Dato Tan Chin Nam, who part-owns Precedence in this year’s Cup.
But Precedence will carry the green colours of co-owner Sir Patrick Hogan for the first time.
The master of Cambridge Stud – the home of champion sires Sir Tristram and Zabeel – has bred seven Cup winners but never had a runner in his colours until now.
Words in a name
As far as names go, the Melbourne Cup is typically a two-horse race between those whose name comprises one word and two words.
The onesies are shading it at the moment and in the past 20 years have scored 12 times. This includes six of the past seven Cups, with Fiorente the most recent last year.
The only winners with three words in their name are Van Der Hum (1976), Gold And Black (1977), Just A Dash (1981), What A Nuisance (1985) and Might And Power (1997).
Three-word contenders this year are Who Shot Thebarman and Unchain My Heart.
The Melbourne Cup of 1976 has gone down in folklore as being run on perhaps the wettest track in its history.
Flemington was deluged with rain 30 minutes before the race and the track was turned into a quagmire, but it failed to dampen the hopes of noted mudlark Van Der Hum.
Van Der Hum, named after a South African brandy-based liqueur, was backed into favouritism and duly saluted in a time of 3 minutes 34 seconds, about 14 seconds slower than what is standard these days.
Initials
This category, which literally represents the A-B-Cs of Cup statistics, reveals winners whose names start with T are hot to trot.
It helps when many have names such as The Barb (1866), The Pearl (1871), The Quack (1872), The Assyrian (1882), The Grafter (1898), The Victory (1902), The Parisian (1911) and The Trump (1937).
There’s a three-way dead-heat for second between M, P and S, which each have 12 victories.
Fiorente landed just the second success for F last year. Horses whose names start with the letters I, Q, U, X and Y, despite their value in Scrabble, are still winless after 153 years.
Unchain My Heart is the only chance this year to break through for the winless brigade.
The only Z winner, Zulu in 1881, triumphed in a Cup that would be remembered for all the wrong reasons.
Around 100,000 people, around a third of Melbourne’s population at the time, were left horrified as a dog raced on to the track during the race. This caused two runners to fall, resulting in the death of jockey George Dodd.
By race’s end, Zulu – with 36.3 kilograms on his back, the second lowest weight ever carried to Cup victory – had landed a blow to punters by saluting at 50-1.
Conclusion
Our data suggests Ireland’s Mutual Regard has the most similar profile to past Melbourne Cup winners.
It was a narrow victory in the end as he ticked many of the right boxes – barrier, colour, sex, odds and silks.
Mutual Regard and Germany’s Protectionist settled in for a fight to the line but Damien Oliver’s mount prevailed in a photo finish.
Longshot Brambles couldn’t stay in touch with the first two and held off a late surge by Signoff to finish third.
Both first and second are high up in the betting for Tuesday’s race, while Brambles provides good value for the trifecta.
Historical data looks like a hurdle for the favourite Admire Rakti (17th), while the record of mares weighs heavily on Lucia Valentina (18th).
Notes
- Data compiled from Miller’s Guide, Victoria Racing Club, RISA
- This interactive displays the similarity of this year’s Melbourne Cup field to all past winners across a range of categories. It is not designed as a guide to likelihood of victory. source: abc.net
STUDIO 3 NEWCASTLE AUSTRALIA 