By Greg Baum
Horse racing is equally the weakness of those with too much money and those with none, and they were well met at Flemington on Tuesday when reclusive property developer Lloyd Williams' gelding Almandin won the Melbourne Cup, making a record five for Williams in a race he maintains any working man one day could win, if only they had the drive, time and luck.
If only.
Williams has, and so the Cup has become his obsession. But he also has one other asset, the most vital, money, and he admits he has squandered it in prodigious amounts in his grand pursuit. Eight more Melbourne Cups in the next year would just about put him square, he said.
Williams was and is the very image of aristocracy. He is rarely seen at the races and had not been to the Cup for 20 years, preferring to watch from the seclusion of his lodge nestling in the Macedon ranges, with the sound muted, which is also how he watches footy and cricket. He was on course on Tuesday only because of a mysterious injury to his son and proxy, Nick, leaving him on crutches.
Number five: Lloyd Williams holds up the Melbourne Cup.Credit: Getty Images
"I missed it," he said. "Great atmosphere. I'm sad I haven't been here before."
Williams appeared in morning coat, top hat and waistcoat, complete with VRC life membership badge in his lapel, and to him,unlike 97,000-odd others on the course, this was not dress-up. He built up Hudson Conway, was once on the VRC committee, and founded Crown casino and named its most exclusive facility, the Mahogany room, after one of his horses.
None of this is privileged information; it was well ventilated by Williams himself in post-race interviews. So was the idea that he thinks his 120-hectare, 40-horse stud is a "small operation", that he gets around the world a bit and that he tipped Almandin to an old golfer while holidaying in Port Douglas recently. Evidently, this celebrity gig was not so bad after all.
On the winning podium, Williams urged everyone to show solidarity with Emirates, the Cup sponsor, by immediately buying a ticket to Dubai and then to the world that opens up beyond, though many in the real world probably could not have afforded a ticket to Deepdene once they had paid off their Cup ensembles. One perennial effect of Emirates' backing is that the course is overrun with flight attendants with plastered-on smiles. There are, however, no call buttons.
Williams also admired Emirates' elaborate tent in the Birdcage, saying it was more like a house, really. He likes houses.
Winner, in racing, is an adaptable term. Almandin was the winning horse, Kerrin McEvoy the winning jockey and Robert Hickmott, a former Melbourne footballer, the winning trainer. But Williams, by his own account and others, is a very hands-on owner. Hands and heels, even, maybe also with a touch of whip, for his on his own admission something of a martinet of an owner/trainer/horseman.
Almandin nosed out the aptly named Heartbreak City in a stirring finish. "You need a lot of luck to win this race," sighed Williams. Third was Hartnell, one of five horses saddled up by Sheikh Mohammed bin Rashid Al Maktoum and the Godolphin stable in their latest and still fruitless effort to win our Cup. In the topsy-turvy world of intermingling princes and paupers that is thoroughbred racing, the sheikh, who has barely an emirate to his name and no more than a dozen oilfields, has become a kind of Bulldogs' style underdog. He is the little sheikh who might. So he will remain for at least another year.
All three placegetters were bred overseas. This has become the default of the race that stops a nation, but has been appropriated by the world. If it were a cattle station or a mine, it would be subject to a Foreign Investment Review board hearing. Gina Reinhart, a guest on Tuesday, must have felt aggrieved. She usually does.
Only one runner, the fancied Jameka, was Australian bred. Williams regretted this, saying the Australian thoroughbred industry appeared no longer to have the patience needed to breed and educate stayers. It has become an annual lament. The effect is only partly offset by horses who are "naturalised" at the last minute, the way Australian athletes conveniently are in an Olympic year.
But the Melbourne Cup is only tangentially about the horses. Even in the parade ring, where racers and racegoers come closest to one another, this is evident. On one side of the fence could be seen a a number in navy blue, with light blue and red trim, held together with a fetching belt, and white-trimmed shoes. That was Jameka.
On the other was spied a sheen, a nice length of fetlock and an endearingly skittish temperament; they were the admirers. In common, there was fascinators, though Jameka's was invisible. The clearest distinction was that the ones not taking pictures of themselves were the horses.
In eternal truth, neither watchers nor watched knew much about the day's real business, except that it was exciting. But from the great jumble of rich, poor, poor dressed as rich, rich dressed in poor taste, horseflesh, human flesh and hubris, it was clear that – Williams aside – the only certain winner would from Cup day would be the dry-cleaning industry.