Cup Week - Part 1

It is Monday evening.  I arrived in Melbourne late on Friday night.  Yesterday was Derby Day.  Flemington is a tough grind, but there is no way I could ever miss it during Cup Week.   Yet again my alarm is set to go off early tomorrow morning.  My great friend Gary and I journeyed to the Derby at Flemington together, as we have the last couple of years.  He's good for me, as I hope I am for him.  This year we had company in Paul, who was working with me yesterday.  Paul is a great photographer, a thoroughly decent and nice person, and he was great to have about. 

Melbourne weather makes me laugh, it's crazy weather, but I like it.  Saturday was very warm, and Flemington is a track with little to no cover, and we all felt the heat.  Then on Sunday a change came through.  Squally winds, showers..  Crazy weather!  Today was mostly dry, but cool.  I had intended to photograph Fiorente at the beach this morning, but it was too cold so he didn't go.   So instead I headed out to Werribee for the first time, and it was good to cast an eye over the international runners.  We were all improvising and adapting to get up high enough to photograph the runners on track, as there is no platform to stand on.  Surely this is an oversight.  "Dodgey" made me wince looking at him, perched at almost the very top of his ladder, with a 600mm and another camera swinging from his shoulder.  He didn't fall off.  Impressed!  Julian was standing on the roof of his $700 car.  Petchy and Seb were on the bumper of their car.  I was on the boot on mine. 

Later today I went and photographed Fiorente briefly at the pool, but didn't hang about, as the horse needs his peace and quiet, and I had other people to see, and caught up with a few friends.  One of whom was Paul, and he and I went through our pictures from Saturday.  He's done a super job!!!!  And we're feeling very pleased with the combined package we will send through from the day, and I'm very pleased about that.

Cup day weather tomorrow supposed to be just lovely.  However it is a little downhil after Wednesday, with the weather forecast for later in the week being changed an almost hourly basis it seemed.  Oaks Day changed from about 30 degrees (yuk!) down to 23 (which had me thinking 'hurrah!') but is now sitting at showers and 20 degrees.  Touch wood that's still ok.  However while Saturday was originally going to be warm, it then traveled to mild (no problem!) and has somehow landed at 18 degrees with 'rain at times'.  That's ever so slightly grounds for muttering several four letter words and is probably only bettered by a forecast of "it's going to be a stinker and 40 degrees...  Alas and woe....

Yes, as I hear you ask, I do have my rain covers here, and I hope you will be even more impressed by the fact that this time I also have packed a proper raincoat.  It's hard to take the forecast seriously though this far out....  It's a little bit like the person who promises so much and delivers absolutely nothing.  You end up feeling that you'll believe it when you finally see it...

Rag to Riches...  A great Australian breeding story.  Bought for $4,000 by Robbie Laing.  Still an entire.  And now the winner of the G1 Blue Ribbon Classic, the VRC Derby.










Zoustar???  Superstar?????  And 100 Group 1 wins for Jimmy Cassidy.












Red Tracer - a Group 1 at last.

Ruscello qualifies for the Melbourne Cup before drawing the Car Park, err...  barrier 24.

Side Glance.  In the colours made famous in Australia by that bonny little pony Dunaden.   Yes, he's black, but a bit spindly and long eared for me to be raving about his looks like the others.  I am a purist when it comes to horse's looks....







Comments

  1. Anne SNovember 5, 2013 at 8:22 PM

    Lovely photos as usual. I saw you there Bronwen, but didn't want to distract you, so didn't yell out.

    By the way that was Red Tracer's second Group 1 victory. She won the Tatts Tiara in Queensland in June this year. I've become a big fan of her stablemate Catkins, who shows great promise and has been going great guns in Melbourne this spring.

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