It’s been decades, back to the late 1980s, since the major players have landed a Melbourne Cup success with so much poise and little fanfare. New Zealand’s dominance of Tuesday’s Melbourne Cup is now a matter of record.  

We have uncovered one of the most impressive Melbourne Cup victors in Verry Elleegant that will go down in the annals of history not only brave but brilliant.

And the two people that brought her to Flemington to tackle what many good judges thought would be beyond her, a 3200-metre victory at a stage of life when perhaps a stud career beckoned.

But much of Verry Elleegant’s win was attributed to James McDonald the rider, a Kiwi jockey, who’d spent 18 months on the sidelines, yet fought an increasing waistline to come back not only riding but into the silk department of jockeys in the world of racing.

His patience, and yet his vigour, have been on display at Flemington over the first two days of this world-famous carnival.

McDonald has looked just as at home on the tricky and often confusing straight track as he was navigating a successful journey on Verry Elleegant in the Melbourne Cup.

And away from the racecourse at his home in Sydney, Chris Waller added a Melbourne Cup to his already stunning CV of major race victories.

He steadily and carefully moulded Verry Elleegant’s 2021 Melbourne Cup appearance months away from the prying eyes of others.  

Just as he did with Winx, Waller spent hours monitoring Verry Elleegant’s build-up to the Melbourne majors in a performance achieved only by the rarest of conditioners of thoroughbreds.

Chris Waller, who barely managed to scrape together his deposit to put down on his trainer’s licence in Sydney all those years ago, now rightfully been uttered as the next Cummings, Thomas Smith or Hayes.  

Waller has managed to reinvent horse training to such a level that he can have starters in most races on the eastern seaboard at one time.  

He now has a Caulfield Cup, a Melbourne Cup, a Cox Plate under his belt and only a Golden Slipper has eluded him.

But Waller, whose Sydney stable houses some of the finest horse flesh in the southern hemisphere, sat on his couch amongst his young family and was privately proud at how far he had come in the, often, cruel world of racing.

Verry Elleegant, James McDonald and Chris Waller were largely unheard of for a long time.

They all at one time had overcome setbacks to achieve the very best of horse racing in Australia.

And as if the trio hadn’t shown all of the Australian racing industry how it’s done on the first Tuesday in November, 20 hours later and it was on again with a maiden galloper called Gulf of Aden took out the Maiden Plate at one of Victoria’s traditional country meetings on Wednesday afternoon.

And who trained the galloper? Chris Waller and the youngster was ridden by former South Island jockey Daniel Stackhouse.

And it seems for the final two days of the rich VRC Carnival the Kiwi trend will continue unabated.