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SO THESE BUSH KNOCKABOUTS DIDN’T GO TO ‘DOODLE-PULLING PRIVATE SCHOOL’
THIS story in the FAIRFAX MEDIA prompted an instant response from one of our regulars PERCY SMITH of MELBOURNE, which read:
‘THESE bloody mugs with a license to look down their noses at a couple of country ‘knockabouts’ who didn’t go to some up-market, doodle-pulling Grammar School piss me off.
Just cop this one and the writer of this story got it right when he said history was made but those making the speeches weren’t in the least bit interested or were simply reading from a prepared speech.’
THE story by KRISPEN HALL for FAIRFAX MEDIA reads:
NOT since 1977 – almost 40 years ago – has a governor-general performed so poorly at the Melbourne Cup.
In 1977 Sir John Kerr got a bit plastered and was out of control.
Not so in 2015. Sir Peter Cosgrove was in total control. So much in control that he was utterly controlled by what seemed to be a pre-prepared speech.
Just fill in the blanks with the name of the jockey, trainer and owner.
He completely missed the point of history.
Why didn't he just chuck away his prop – his prepared speech – and seize the moment of history. For the first time in the 155 years of its running, a female jockey won the Melbourne Cup.
Yay.
You wouldn't know if you listened to the Governor-General. Or worse, the speech from the corporate sponsor's lackey. The Emirates man was worse. His speech seemed like an obvious "fill in the blanks" script.
Even the trainer, who should have had more empathy, thanked the owners, the staff and even the strapper before even mentioning the real historic heroine of the moment – Michelle Payne, the first female jockey to win the Melbourne Cup.
Payne was magnificent. Panting and bouncing in the saddle while returning from the win she told of her fight against a misogynous industry and a battle to fight off moves to take her off Prince of Penzance a couple of weeks before the moment of glory.
Typical. Woman does hard yards. Bloke takes over at the winning moment. But not so on this occasion. She fought to keep her ride and won on it.
Riding back to the pavilion she said this about males who thought a female could not win the Melbourne Cup, "You can all get stuffed."
Meanwhile, back at the pavilion, the miserable, frightened, beholden set-piece speakers spoke their set-piece speeches. Ironically, they imagined that this would be safe. Their PR speech writers propping them up from any possible faux pas.
Well, the safe, offend-no-one approach backfired this time.
The glossy failure of the Governor-General and the Emirates representative to seize the moment of history illustrates the desperate poverty of a large part of public life in Australia today: safety, bum-covering, offend no-one, no spontaneity.
The obverse is of course, inspire no one. And if ever there was a moment to capture imaginations and inspire Australians it was the day the first woman jockey won the Melbourne Cup.
MICHELLE – A ROLE MODEL – NOT ONLY FOR WOMEN IN RACING BUT IN THE WORKFORCE
JULIE ANDERSON of MELBOURNE felt strongly enough to pen this email to the Whinge only hours after the Melbourne Cup was run:
‘THE winner might have been a $101 despised outsider but might I suggest that the success story behind this year’s Melbourne Cup was one for the ages and long overdue.
The internationals, raced by some of the richest owners in the world, were forced to take a backseat role to Prince of Penzance, a $50,000 bargain buy that had defied career-threatening injuries and even a near fatal colic attack and twisted bowel.
His jockey, Michelle Payne, had defied the odds as well to become the first lady jockey to ride the Melbourne Cup winner. She didn’t mince words speaking of the chauvinistic hurdles that confronted women in the racing industry and won plenty of friends of both sexes with her suggestion: ‘They can get stuffed’.
But behind that tough talking, angelic faced 30-year-old, who boasts a competitive will of iron in the saddle, there is a soft heart as evidenced by her love not only for her ‘favorite’ horse, Prince of Penzance but also for the brother she shares a house with who suffers from Down Syndrome. Stevie, who legged her aboard the Cup winner with the quip, ‘you had better win, I’ve backed him’ was as much a part of this success story as champion trainer Darren Weir, his history making jockey (the only female with a mount in the big race) and of course their horse that most punters preferred to ignore.
This wasn’t to be a Cup won by one of the Big W’s – Waterhouse or Waller – nor was the richest slice of the stakes headed off-shore to international owners, most of whom have enough already. It would go into the pockets of a group of far from wealthy owners – several racing a horse for the first time. They had been under pressure at times to sack Payne – she fought hard to retain the mount. In her corner was Darren Weir, the bush trainer, who also fulfilled a lifelong dream.
It was a win that hopefully will change a lot of things. Life will never be the same for Michelle Payne – although one gets the impressions it won’t change much for the way she and Stevie live their lives. It will probably only make her more determined to press ahead with plans to hold a joint trainer-jockey license. One thing that this first Tuesday in November will be remembered for is the race that struck a blow for ‘girl power’ all over the globe and how Michelle Payne became a role model not only for young women wanting to become jockeys but also for females facing adversity in the challenge to succeed in a male dominated work force’.
EDITOR’S NOTE: THIS is a lengthy story but because it relates to the above email and is so excellently written by ANDREW RULE of the HERALD SUN we felt it was worth reproducing. It is a great read – enjoy:
MICHELLE AND HER PRINCE RIVAL ELIZABETH TAYLOR AND NATIONAL VELVET
YOU couldn’t make it up. Sack the scriptwriter who comes up with the sort of outrageous fairytale that unfolded at Flemington.
It goes like this. One of Australian racing’s saddest stories found the happiest of endings when a motherless girl rode into Melbourne Cup folklore on a cheap Kiwi-bred horse owned by ordinary Aussies, trained by a Mallee kid who taught himself to be a world-beating horseman.
Not only was Michelle Payne the only female rider in the legendary race, she was the first to win it.
Of course, the scriptwriter insisted it be an omen bet: the race marked the 100th anniversary of the first female Cup winner, Edith Widdis of Rosedale in Gippsland, who owned the 1915 Melbourne Cup champion Patrobas.
The script also called for outrageously long odds against everyone involved.
Jockey Payne and trainer Darren Weir have both succeeded despite odds even longer than the 100-1 quoted against their horse, Prince Of Penzance.
Let’s start with Michelle. The 10th and youngest child of the transplanted Kiwi horseman Paddy Payne can’t remember the mother she lost when she was barely six months old.
Mary Payne was killed in a car crash not far from the family stables outside Ballarat in 1986, not long after the clan had crossed the ditch.
The Payne family could have fallen apart but it didn’t. They stuck together and looked after each other as best they could.
Big sister Brigid was 16 then. She helped raise her baby sister. But that’s not all she did. Under the eye of their canny Kiwi father, the Payne girls learned to ride racehorses the way their brothers Patrick and Andrew did, and they rode them very well. Eight of the 10 Payne kids were licensed jockeys.
“Old Paddy” had learned to ride in New Zealand in rodeos and over fences and he knows plenty about anything with hoofs, not to mention horns.
The Payne boys got heavy and went training and the girls retired from the saddle. All except Michelle.
She survived a potentially career-ending smash some years ago to become Australian racing’s finest female jockey, a career pioneered in no small part by her big sister Brigid.
If the story was all about happy endings, Brigid would have been there to see her kid sister beat a man’s world, but she couldn’t. She died of a heart attack in 2007 at 36, after recovering from a heavy fall from a young horse.
But there’s more to the Payne story. Michelle’s brother Stevie was born with Down syndrome.