Great House ready for Melbourne Cup
Great House will become Highclere Australia’s second runner – and Highclere’s third runner overall – in the $7.5 million Group 1 Lexus Melbourne Cup (3200m) this afternoon when he lines up at the top of the Flemington straight for the race that stops the nation.
The Chris Waller trainee will jump from gate seven under Michael Dee with 23 runners to contest the feature after the scratching of Future Score.
We wish all of the owners in Great House the very best of luck and we cannot wait to see the two-tone blue contesting another Melbourne Cup, 17 years after Sir Michael Stoute’s Distinction became the first to sport those colours and four years on from Libran.
Great House, currently rated a 20-1 hope after his win in the Lexus Hotham Stakes (2500m) on Saturday, has received plenty of attention, including this piece in the Sydney Morning Herald and The Age:
Their Cup runneth over
Forget the Birdcage. For Melbourne Cup 2021, it’s all about the owners’ enclosure and who’s standing in it at 3pm when the start gun fires on The Race That Stops a Nation™. With COVID-19 travel restrictions and state government rules capping numbers at Flemington at 10,000 out of a capacity of 100,000-plus, it’s the racehorse owners who are the day’s biggest winners, even if they lose on the track: each Melbourne Cup runner is permitted to have 10 owners in attendance in the prized purple zone which contains all the VRC member facilities. The question is, which owners will make the most of the access?
When it comes to royal pedigree, Irish runner Great House takes the cake. The five-year-old trained by Chris Waller and ridden by Michael Dee has the social stripes to make even the stuffiest Melbourne Club members wince. Great House is part of the Australian arm of Highclere Thoroughbred Racing - the racing syndicate set up by Harry Herbert, son of the 7th Earl of Carnarvon and godson of Queen Elizabeth. The horse’s owners include Sir Winston Churchill’s grandson, the former UK shadow defence secretary Sir Nicholas Soames and granddaughter Lady Charlotte Peel. Former VRC chair Amanda Elliott is an owner along with Melbourne stockbroker John Calvert-Jones, brother-in-law to Rupert Murdoch. Queensland pastoralists Ann and Peter Woollett - who sold their Nardoo station in the Gulf of Carpentaria for $35 million in 2020 - are owners, as is Scanlan and Theodore textiles boss Gary Theodore and partner Renee, and Melbourne eyewear designer Joshua Matta.
But the prize for Great House’s smartest investor goes to Sydney school leaver Harry Edwards who is also part of the partnership along with his chief executive father Kingsley Edwards. Not a bad place to be at all of 18. Great House’s Melbourne owners including Elliott, Matta, John Calvert-Jones will be trackside on Tuesday come Cup time. It’s Sydney owners will be celebrating the Cup at Glass inside Sydney’s Hilton Hotel. Also expected to attend that bash? The Prime Minister’s wife Jenny Morrison.