Brent Thomson: Former champion jockey ahead of the 165th Melbourne Cup

This afternoon's Melbourne Cup is expected to be on the slower side due to forecast rain.

Up to 40 millimetres is expected to fall at Flemington through the day.

New Zealand and Australia Racing Hall of Famer Bret Thomson says Flemington is good at draining water, but expects racing to be slow.

He told Mike Hosking it will be a very open race.

Thomson says many of the horses are European, and they tend to handle the soft track well. 

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
First Tuesday in November, Melbourne Cup. If Steve was right,
yesterday is going to be running to cloudy if not
wet skies. No New Zealand train runners in the field
this year. We do have some New Zealand bread too,
New Zealand bred horses Tornsino and Smoking Romans alongside the
jockey's James McDonald Michael D. Brent Thompson is former Champion
Jockey Racing Hall of Fameries Weather's Brent.

Speaker 2 (00:18):
Morning, Good morning, Mike, nice to be on your show.

Speaker 1 (00:21):
No worries, it all nice to have you on our show.
Still early, you got a sense of the weather and track.
Is she going to rain all day?

Speaker 3 (00:27):
Well, looking out my window it's still very dark. But
I did hear some rain overnight. And look, Flemington does
hold the rain very well. It's a very good draining track.
But I want to assume that it's probably going to
be soft seven or something like like that, depending on

(00:48):
what happens d during the day.

Speaker 2 (00:50):
But look, it is what it is, and we can't
do much about the weather.

Speaker 1 (00:54):
No, indeed not. The overall quality of the field and
your view is what.

Speaker 3 (01:00):
Look, Look, it's interesting. It would have to be a
very Open Cup. There's loads of chances in it, and
a lot of those chances actually do have wet track
form as we As you alluded to, there's only a
couple of New Zealand horses bred horses in the in
the race.

Speaker 2 (01:19):
The rest is.

Speaker 3 (01:20):
Made up of virtually all European, one American horse and
as in a French horse. So as we know, they
all generally handle the soft track, although one smooth operator
is probably a bit of a bit one out on
the gold square there because he doesn't really appreciate it

(01:41):
by all accounts, and you know it had it been
a good track, he was one of the chances.

Speaker 1 (01:45):
What about Bukaroo, I mean, our correspond's been telling us
about this bloke has been on the I don't even
know what sort of bet it is. But if Bukaroo
comes and he's going to earn sixteen billion dollars or
whatever it is, is Bukaroo a chance?

Speaker 2 (01:57):
Yeah? Look, you know he.

Speaker 3 (02:02):
Last year, he ran well all year, and and this
this season he's been consistent without winning a race. But
you know he was a great second and the cox played. Uh,
you'd have you'd have to include him.

Speaker 2 (02:19):
You certainly couldn't leave him out. He's got Craig Williams.

Speaker 3 (02:22):
On him, Melbourne Cup winning jockey riding in great form
as well. But yeah, he's certainly one of the many
chances and we can obviously claim Chris Waller as a
New Zealander.

Speaker 1 (02:38):
Is it still does it still stop a nation? Or
is it is that just a cliche these days? Is
it still as big a deal as it ever was?

Speaker 3 (02:47):
It probably lost a little bit of it's its way
because of the lack of Australian and New Zealand bred
horses in the race become predominantly a europe European uh
you know, bread runners in the race. So from that

(03:07):
point of view, probably the average Australian is probably doesn't
sort of hold it in the same sort of breath
as it used to. But given that what we've seen
here and what view would have seen on television viewing
it from from New Zealand, the crowds, crowd factors have

(03:29):
been amazing. Quite sad that the you know, given that
the day is going to be where they will lose
a lot of people due to that, but the crowds
have been amazing, So, you know, it seems as though
racing has got a bit of a resurgence where it
was getting a bit of a belting for such a
long long time, you know, And from from my point

(03:53):
of view, they're just witnessing the crowds.

Speaker 2 (03:55):
You know.

Speaker 3 (03:56):
You always saw the ladies looking beautifully and well addressed
in the boys.

Speaker 1 (04:03):
As they should, as they should bring listen. You have
the best of guys and appreciate your expertise on that.
Brit Thompson for you.

Speaker 2 (04:09):
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