With the newest horse race entering the fold in Sydney it has launched with a bigger prize pool by than the Melbourne Cup leading to some to suggest The Everest could become bigger than the ‘race that stops the nation’.
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In this week’s edition of ‘At The Bar’ Michael ‘Speedy’ Stratton and The Area News’ sports journalist, Liam Warren sat down to discuss the idea of a race becoming more important than the Melbourne Cup.
Liam: There has been some interesting comparison made in the racing world over the last week what have you made of it Speedy.
Speedy: Yes especially this new race they have put on the calendar up in Sydney, The Everest, a 1200 metre dash with prize money of 10 million bucks. If I can find my old donkey out at the pastures in Hillston at a mates place and get him fit I will enter him in it next year. But seriously it is a good thing for racing in Sydney that they have come up with this concept because they haven't had or done anything positive since they brought in the Golden Slipper and that was back in 1957 when a horse called Todman won it.
Liam: How do you think the race went.
Speedy: I think the best horse in the race won it. I backed a horse called Deploy who was the track record holder over that distance at Randwick, and everyone thought it would be a big show, but it finished a fair way back. Over 33,000 at Randwick is pretty good. It has created a great deal of interest because I saw in the paper the other day where they are comparing it, especially Sydney racing officials, are comparing it to the Melbourne Cup. You cannot compare it to the Cup although it is worth $10 million to the Cup's $6 million but I would like to wager right now that this time next year the Melbourne Cup will be worth the same as the Sydney race if not more.
Liam: Surely the guys in Melbourne won't let the race that stops the nation falls behind in the prize money stakes.
Speedy: They will up the ante for sure, and the other thing about it is if it really takes off The Everest, and it could, will they do what they do in Melbourne.Good luck to them they needed something to give the racing game a boost in Sydney, and they have come up with the right answer. Also the jockey Kerrin McEvoy he had a pretty good day and then on Sunday he went down to Melbourne to Craneborne for their cup meeting and rode an imported horse called Foxwood, and it won so his pick-up for two days would have been over $300,000.
Liam: Not bad for two days work.
Speedy: I should have been a jockey. My old man wanted me to be a lawyer, but that fell through, and I ended up a rouseabout in a shearing shed.
