A Horse Called Mighty by Helen Thomas

Author:Helen Thomas
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Schwartz Publishing Pty. Ltd

As the fourth Saturday in October dawned in Melbourne that year – Cox Plate Day – Moonee Valley was alive with prospect and possibility. For Might and Power’s camp, especially, there was a real sense of occasion that few outside Australia’s racing fraternity would understand.

Those in closest attendance knew the W.S. Cox Plate could mean the world to the horse. As the southern hemisphere’s premier weight-for-age contest, race officials allow only Australasia’s best horses into the field each year, and the winners comprise a veritable who’s who of outstanding gallopers. Before Might and Power lined up in 1998, Amounis, Phar Lap, Ajax, Tranquil Star, Flight, Rising Fast, Tulloch, Tobin Bonze, Gunsynd, Dulcify, Kingston Town, Strawberry Road, Bonecrusher, Better Loosen Up, Super Impose, Octagonal and Saintly had all inscribed their names on the winner’s board since the race was first run in 1922. Good horses, every one of them.

In a way, this was the test that would decide Mighty’s place in the pantheon. It would prove, once and for all, if he was just an equine powerhouse blessed with a brilliant turn of foot who could run his rivals ragged in handicapped events, or if he was an athlete of genuine nuance, a thoroughbred who could take on all comers on a level playing-field and still leave them in his wake. If he could win the Cox Plate, it would confirm he was a horse worthy of inclusion in the record books and, more importantly, in the hallowed honour roll of the best of his predecessors.

It would not be easy. While the Melbourne Cup is fantastic theatre, a handicap of grit and stamina, the Cox Plate is a middle-distance battle of speed and poise and heart. Run over the odd distance of 2040 metres at the quaint Moonee Valley Racecourse, it doesn’t suit all horses; big, long-striding gallopers often find the small, tight-turning track hard to navigate – horses just like Might and Power.

An old-fashioned treasure tucked between two of Melbourne’s older suburbs, Moonee Ponds and Brunswick, Moonee Valley’s picture-postcard effect is completed by the school that stands to one side of the track, with a perfect view of the action: when mid-week races and barrier trials were held there, in an era long since disappeared, classes would stop and enthusiasts, young and old, would thrill to the sound of thundering hooves.

What adds to the peculiar appeal of the track, its suburban magic, is the fact that its physical layout provides one of Australian racing’s great spectacles. As horses swing into the home stretch, often four or five abreast, they seem to be heading straight for the crowd in the grandstand, close enough to touch. It is a wonderful, grand illusion, especially on Cox Plate day.

From a racing purist’s point of view, the event brings together the country’s finest thoroughbreds under the theoretically ideal weight-for-age scale. Again, this means the weight that each horse is allocated to carry in the race, including its jockey, is determined by age rather than ability and past performance.

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