MICHAEL Rodd produced a textbook ride to win the Melbourne Cup on Efficient, unleashing a withering run from the gelding to chase down and pass Purple Moon in the closing stages to win going away.
Rodd gave Efficient, the first Victoria Derby winner to win the Melbourne Cup as a four-year-old since Phar Lap in 1930, a wonderful ride.
Rodd … all hail the conquering heroes. Pic: Getty Images
He settled the Zabeel gelding beautifully in the rear before producing his mount widest of all to overhaul British raider Purple Moon in the final 100 metres and win by a long-looking ½ length.
Purple Moon, trained by Luca Cumani in Newmarket, England, looked likely to give Britain its first victory in the race that stops the nation, but he had no answers to the charge of Efficient, and Damien Oliver, a two-time Melbourne Cup winner, was forced to settle for the runner’s-up berth for the second time in as many years after partnering Pop Rock last year.
Irish raider Mahler, who chased a hot pace behind the third European-trained runner, Tungsten Strike, stuck on in game fashion to take third, 2½ lengths behind Purple Moon, with Zipping, the stablemate of the winner, fourth. Zipping appeared not to stay 3200m after travelling ominously throughout.
Outsiders Dolphin Jo and 2005 runner-up On A Jeune finished fifth and sixth repectively.
Winning owner Lloyd Williams, celebrating his third Melbourne Cup victory, after Just A Dash in 1981 and What A Nuisance in 1985, said that he had instructed Rodd to ride wide after deciding that Efficient did not travel well inside runners.
"Michael rode this absolutely to plan," Williams said.
"We realised this horse only travels on the outside."
Williams also explained the reasoning to take the blinkers off Efficient after his unplaced run in the W.S Cox Plate.
"He got a bump and didn’t seem to know where he was," he said of the run at Moonee Valley.
"We then decidied to sharpen him up."
Efficient … a victory 12 months in the planning. Pic: Getty Images
Williams subsequently had Efficient work twice over hurdles, either side of two extremely tough workouts on the track, to put his mind back on the job of racing, and the result was there for all to see at Flemington, where the gelding looked every inch the superstar he promised to be 12 months ago.
"It’s going to take a while to sink in," Rodd said of the winning feeling.
"I feel numb at the moment.
"I was in a good spot, throughout. I was very happy, but he then was a bit keen. I got to the 1000 and I felt sick; he had gutted me. But we got to the 500 on the outside and I was so confident."
Williams also paid tribute to jockey Steven Arnold, who had ridden Efficient in his four previous runs this season but decided to ditch the Derby winner in favour of Gallic, the Sydney Cup winner, who was scratched on the morning of the race after he was discovered to have heat in a joint.
Arnold eventually picked up the ride on Railings after that gelding’s jockey was injured in a race fall in the Lavazza Long Black, and he finished about as far back from Efficient as was possible on the day.
Railing finished 20th of the 21 runners after giving Arnold what the hoop described as a "tough" and "ordinary" ride.
Cumani was a little disappointed with Purple Moon’s second, but he said he would definitely keep making the trip to Australia to try to win the race.
"Damien (Oliver) gave him a lovely ride but I never think I’ve won a race until the finish," Cumani said.
"I could see the grey horse coming down the outside and in the end he was too good. There are no excuses.
"I’m a little bit disappointed but we’ll come back next year for sure with this horse or another."
The other international, Tungsten Strike, found the whole thing a bit too much and finished last after leading for much of the race.
"I think the occasion got to him," trainer Amanda Perrett’s husband, Mark, said.
Source: Rodd strikes with efficiency
