Sheila Laxon: Knight's Choice trainer on their win at the Melbourne Cup

New Zealand trainer Sheila Laxon is celebrating a second Melbourne Cup victory, 23 years after her first. 

Knight's Choice —who she works with alongside John Symons— won by a nose at Flemington. 

Laxon prepped Ethereal to the crown in 2001, the last New Zealand-owned and trained horse to triumph. 

She told Mike Hosking there was a touch of deja vu. 

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
Not about the office for Knight's Choice and its connections.
Irish jockey Robbie Dolan brought home a rank outside of
the Melbourne cap as. I'm sure you're well and we're
co trained, of course by the legendary Sheila Lexan, who's
with us from Melbourne. Sheila, Good morning, Good morning, wreg
How are you? I'm sure, jeez, you still sound happy.
How happy did you get? Did you get happier than
you've ever been?

Speaker 2 (00:18):
Oh? Well, you know what was so special My children
came out with their children and it was a great
moment to share with the family. So it was an
extra special Melbourne Cup win. I must say it.

Speaker 1 (00:32):
Going into the day. Did you give yourself any real
chance or not?

Speaker 2 (00:38):
Well? The funny on the way down John said to me,
what do you think of his chances of winning? I said,
I hear wins and I said that I did say
that a bit differently, I must admit, but you know,
I just he'd done exactly the same as the serial done.
He's got the most electric sprint finish and Robbie was
so on song with him. You know, everything worked together

(01:02):
really well and that's so proved to be. But messimate
the odds. His odds were so big because he had
been racing on wet tracks and he is an absolute
duffer on wet tracks. So he's deceived to be hopeless
in this campaign down in Victoria, but in actually fact
he's running at Bendigo was really good on this first
you know, drive track, and he probably could have gone

(01:24):
close in that race had he not met some traffic
problems up the straight.

Speaker 1 (01:28):
What's it like as you a one hundreds ago he's
coming up, There's two of them coming up through the
middle and they're moving and at that point you must
know it's on Potentially it must be like no other
feeling in the world.

Speaker 2 (01:42):
Ah, that's right, you know, I had a serm coming
up up the straight. I just so he's going to
win it, because that was exactly what the theorial did.
You know, he gathered the momentum and you know, I
was quite confident he was going to win. But it
was interesting watching the replay when that Japanese hors came
very close to heading him at the post.

Speaker 1 (02:01):
Yeah, did you think you're headed as they crossed the line,
because it was real close.

Speaker 2 (02:06):
Yes, I did, you know, and I was I spent.
I was watching the television screen at that point, because
we're the owners and trainers stand it's it's by the
clocktail that you can't really see the side on the post.
But you know, I looked up at the screen and
that was yeah. He was quite clear.

Speaker 1 (02:23):
One yeah, and a lot of the credit and I
think rightly. So I went to Robbie Dolan.

Speaker 2 (02:27):
Who wrote it was one hundred and twenty one hundred ride.
You know, what he did was perfection, and he knew,
you know, he started going back, you know, going down
the back of the back straight for the first time,
the only time. He started losing his position a little bit,
but he said they all started going quicker then and

(02:49):
he wanted to you know, he just decided to wait,
which was just intuition, you know. Fantastic, fantastic it was.

Speaker 1 (02:56):
It was fantastic to watch too. Congratulations Sheila, I mean
two times all history, first woman ever to do it
with Ethereal, the only woman ever to have done it twice,
I mean, records, it's just and so far from the
outside it's ridiculous. So it was one of those magical,
magical days.

Speaker 2 (03:12):
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Speaker 1 (03:16):
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