The Melbourne Cup is ‘the race that stops the nation’ and assessing the facts and figures of the race can often help finding the winner.
Below are the stats for the 2015 Melbourne Cup field.
The trainer: Lee Freedman (5 wins) (Note: He now trains in partnership with his brother Anthony) – Our Ivanhowe (No. 4)
The jockey: Damien Oliver (3 wins) – The Offer (No. 13)
The owner: Lloyd Williams (4 wins) – Kingfisher (No. 18), Bondi Beach (No. 20) and The United States (No. 22)
The saddlecloth: 4 and 12 (11 wins) – Our Ivanhowe (No. 4), Sky Hunter (No. 12)
The barrier: 11 (8 wins) – Preferment (No. 15)
The age and sex: 5YO E&G (41 wins) – Snow Sky (No. 1), Criterion (No. 2), Big Orange (No. 5), Hartnell (No. 6), Trip To Paris (No. 10), Kingfisher (No. 18)
Three lead-up form races to the Melbourne Cup have produced 11 winners since 2000. These are the horses that come out of those races:
Caulfield Cup (4 winners) – Snow Sky (No. 1), Fame Game (No. 3), Our Ivanhowe (No. 4), Hokko Brave (No. 7), Trip To Paris (No. 10), Who Shot Thebarman (No. 11), Grand Marshall (No. 14), Gust Of Wind (No. 24)
Cox Plate (4 winners) – Criterion (No. 2), Hartnell (No. 6), Preferment (No. 15)
Geelong Cup (3 winners) – Quest For More (No. 16), Almoonqith (No. 17), Sertorius (No. 21)
Back-to-back winners: 5 (Note: Makybe Diva went back-to-back twice in her three-peat. For the purpose of this we’ve counted it as one.) – N/A
Won two Melbourne Cups not in consecutive years: Peter Pan (1932 & 1934) – N/A
Unluckiest saddlecloth: 18 (1 win) – Kingfisher (No. 18)
Unluckiest barrier: 18 (no winners) – Bondi Beach (No. 20)
Quirky facts: More than 60 international gallopers have tried to win the Melbourne Cup in their first Australian start of a preparation yet only Vintage Crop in 1993 achieved it. In 2015, Big Orange (No. 5), Max Dynamite (No. 8), Sky Hunter (No. 12) and Bondi Beach (No. 20) will be attempting to join the record books.
Since Vintage Crop became the first international visitor to win the Melbourne Cup in 1993, four others have gone on to replicate the feat – Media Puzzle (2002), Delta Blues (2006), Americain (2010), and Dunaden (2011).
Since 2000, only two Australian-bred horses have won the Melbourne Cup – Viewed (2008) and Shocking (2009). Sertorius (No. 21) is the only Australian bred horse in the race this year.
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