GALLOPERS NEWS

10.10.11 Is This What We Want?
 

The famous 1997 finish of The Cup, Might And Power defeating Doriemus

..... Gallopers was flicking through the latest order of entry for the Melbourne Cup yesterday & were immediately struck by an amazing fact. The Melbourne Cup allows only 24 runners every year for safety reasons & in the top 24 at time this article was published, only 3 horses, yes 3 horses were bred in Australia. All other 21 were bred in either New Zealand, America or Europe.

And of the 3 Australian bred horses, Alcopop has gone to the spelling paddock & will not be taking his place while 4yo mare Pinker Pinker is being aimed elsewhere. That leaves the Team Williams/Hickmott stayer Linton as the only Australian bred horse in the top 24. We then have to look down to No.32 Older Than Time to find the next Australian bred horse in the order of entry & the Waterhouse trained gelding will have to win a race between now & then to actually make the final field unless there is a massive attrition rate for those above him. Even the Metropolitan winner, a race considered a traditional lead up to the Cup, Australian bred gelding The Verminator, is only 38th in order of entry & realistically needs a miracle to gain a start on the first Tuesday in November. The Metrop has provided past winners such as Saintly & we shudder to think the winner of this time honoured race cannot even obtain a start in the big one.

To view the updated Melbourne Cup Order of Entry, click here.

So is this what the Australian racing industry wants? Is this what the Australian public want of their biggest horse race of the year? The icon of all icons, the race that physically stops the nation, the race that can bring a tear to the eye of the most hardened racing enthusiast? The race where legends are made & time honoured stories evolve?

Then we have to ask the next question. Will enthusiasm & interest for The Cup wane because of the lack of Australian home bred competitors?

This is certainly not the way Gallopers wanted to see The Cup head. Sure we have had Kiwis coming over for decades stealing Cups glory however, no matter what some may think of New Zealanders, they are as close to Australians as we can get & we are more than accustomed to them competing at the highest level in Australia in all forms of sports. And we treat the Kiwis almost as our own, at worst best friends.

Gallopers would not like to see no Australian bred horse in the Melbourne Cup & we would urge administrators to place some form of embargo on the numbers of overseas raiders that start in the Cup. Other industries place limits such as local television content on free to air television for example. The food industry also have quotas for the amount of Australian products seen on grocery shops shelves.

So why not the Melbourne Cup?

And what will be next? No Australian trained horse running in the Melbourne Cup? Surely, hopefully, that will never happen. Or will it?

Gallopers 10.10.11

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