Irish trainer Willie Mullins is confident he learnt valuable lessons from the failure of his two French-bred stayers – Vauban and Absurde – in last year’s Group 1 Melbourne Cup (3200m) at Flemington.
Mullins has returned for the 2024 Melbourne Cup on Tuesday (5 November) with the same two horses who were highly-fancied in last's year's HK$43 million feature but faded after they shared the lead at the 400m mark.
Absurde finished seventh, beaten nearly six lengths, while his more fancied stablemate Vauban was 14th of the 23 runners, beaten 13.35 lengths.
Vauban, with top weight of 122lb and pressing for outright favouritism, is in sparkling form with a third in the G2 Curragh Cup (2815m), a victory in the Group 2 Lonsdale Cup (3251m) at York and then a second to eight-time Group 1 winner Kyprios in the G1 Irish St Leger (2800m).
Mullins said Absurde, who won the Listed Chester Stakes (2879m) at his last race, ran a "cracker" last year and this time around he'll change tactics with both his runners.
"And I think the weather is going to play a big part in it and last year our horses weren't used to 30-plus degrees," he said.
"Most people last year were going to award us the Cup before the race. It doesn't happen."
A cooler day predicted for the Cup, the horses arriving in Australia later than last year and a change in race tactics are what Mullins sees as bonuses for his two runners.
Two British trainers also have top hopes in the race. Brian Ellison's Onesmoothoperator shot into Cup calculations in his Australian debut with an easy win in the Group 3 Geelong Cup (2400m).
And Harry Eustace's Sea King, having his first Australian race, qualified for the Cup with an impressive victory in the Group 3 Bendigo Cup (2400m).
Eustace hopes to emulate his brother David, now training in Hong Kong, who won the Melbourne Cup with Gold Trip in 2022 when he co-trained with Ciaron Maher, who has four runners – Circle Of Fire, Okita Soushi, Interpretation and Saint George – in Tuesday's race.
Maher said Okita Soushi and Interpretation had impressed him the most recently, and while he concedes Circle Of Fire needs to lift, he rates Saint George as a smoky.
Three Hong Kong jockeys have rides in the race. Zac Purton is on Land Legend, one of trainer Chris Waller's five horses – Buckaroo, Kovalica, Valiant King and Manzoice are the others - in the Cup, and rode the gelding to third place in the Group 1 Caulfield Cup (2400m) last month.
Buckaroo , a fast-finishing second in the Caulfield Cup, remains one of the favourites but the only slight query is running-out a strong 3200m.
Karis Teetan will ride one of the outsiders, Mostly Cloudy, for co-trainers Trent Busuttin and Natalie Young.
Andrea Atzeni returns to Flemington for his first ride in the race since My Ambivalent who was unplaced in 2014.
He has retained the ride for James Cummings, the grandson of the late Bart Cummings who trained a record 12 Melbourne Cups, on Zardozi who finished fourth in last month's Caulfield Cup (2400m).
Zardozi, who will carry 112lb, was the only Melbourne Cup horse to race at Saturday's Victoria Derby Day meeting and was a fast-finishing fifth in the Group 1 Empire Rose Stakes (1600m).
Atzeni said he expected the four-year-old mare to be competitive in an open race with her weight.
"She gave me a great spin in the Caulfield Cup and hopefully she will do well in the Melbourne Cup," he said.
"She relaxed nicely and had a nice trip around and kept going all the way to the line."
Zardozi is only one of four Australian-bred horses in the Cup.
