Irish coach Willie Mullins will search an elusive first Melbourne Cup victory in Australia’s most well-known race on Tuesday.
Mullins, the one man to coach 100 winners at leap racing’s Cheltenham Pageant, has focused the Flat contest (03:00 GMT) as a key occasion he needs to win.
He hopes final 12 months’s favorite Vauban, who completed 14th, can fare higher this time, with Mullins additionally working Absurde, who took seventh place 12 months in the past.
Onesmoothoperator represents Brian Ellison, with Sea King working for fellow British coach Harry Eustace at Flemington Racecourse.
Caulfield Cup runner-up Buckaroo is among the many main Australia-based hopes within the ‘race that stops a nation’. Coach Chris Waller, who was born in New Zealand, additionally saddles Kovalica, Land Legend, Valiant King and Manzoice.
Vauban received the Lonsdale Cup at York earlier than ending runner-up to Kyprios within the Irish St Leger final time, whereas Absurde landed the Chester Stakes having received the County Hurdle at Cheltenham in March.
Mullins would dearly like to scoop a Melbourne Cup.
“It is in all probability the largest flat race on the earth that I can win with the kind of horses we purchase,” mentioned Mullins, 68, who was second with Max Dynamite in 2015.
“That is why it is a race that we might actually like to win.”
