Bart continues to hold back European tide
An 82-year-old grandfather is leading the defence of the Melbourne Cup from an annual international invasion which has globalised Australia's most famous horse race.
Bart Cummings was among those who lamented the entry of the European horses and feared their dominance, but he has answered the challenge and in the process built on the legend of Australia's greatest horse trainer.
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Winner of a record 12 Melbourne Cups, Cummings won nine before the cup was lost overseas to the canny Irishman Dermot Weld, who travelled across the globe in the inaugural invasion with Vintage Crop in 1993.
That year Cummings' three runners Great Vintage, Frontier Boy and Tennessee Jack ran fourth, fifth, and sixth respectively.
It was a watershed cup. A day that changed the race forever.
Predictions that the locals would be squeezed out of their own cup and that the international horses would dominate were rife.
But not to be denied, Cummings' rallied his stable. It was a new challenge, a challenge that even he may say he needed.
With his ingenuity he has won a further three cups since Vintage Crop's triumph.
The wins have been sweet but none sweeter, one suspects, than his past two when he twice held international runners to second place.
A record nine overseas-trained horses are in the 24-horse field for the 150th running of the great race.
It is an amazing contrast to 1993 when only two horses arrived, with Drums Taps finishing ninth to Vintage Crop. In 18 years, 73 overseas-trained horses have run in the cup.
Their influence is undeniable with three wins, six seconds and six thirds in 12 of those 18 cups.Weld is the only overseas trainer to have won the cup twice, his second success coming in 2002 with Media Puzzle, while four years later Delta Blues and Pop Rock provided a landmark quinella for the Japanese.The internationals have steadily improved their record and their performances outweigh their numbers. Since 1998 they have filled almost half (17) of a possible 36 top-three placings.
