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Where Does the Melbourne Cup Winner Sit in the Run?

Only three horses since 2000 have won the Melbourne Cup from the first four, so where is the real sweet spot in the run?

Where Does the Melbourne Cup Winner Sit in the Run?

Recorded August 2025 for Million Dollar Melbourne Cup 2025 Challenge Ep 1. Any figures mentioned are from that time.

When I look at the Melbourne Cup, one of the first things I check is where a horse is likely to sit in the run. The history is clear. Since 2000, only three winners have sat in the first four, and only one of those actually led. On-pace runners get punished in this race, and the reason is pressure. The sweet spot is behind them, with cover.

The three that did it from the front

The first was Delta Blues in 2006. Then you get two in a row. In 2019 the fence was on fire and the Danny O'Brien horse, Vow and Declare, fell in to win. I had something on that one. Then in 2020, Twilight Payment led the whole way with 55.5 kilos, which goes against a lot of my theories. The big tick there was Joseph O'Brien. He knows how to prepare a horse for it, and there was a bloke involved called Lloyd Williams who has had a bit of experience winning Cups. Seven of them. So when an on-pacer does win, there is usually something exceptional about the preparation behind it.

That is three on-pace winners in all those years, and one genuine leader. It is not a pattern you want to be betting into without a very good reason.

Why the pressure beats them

The reason I do not like on-pace horses in the Cup is the high pressure. You often get high speeds in this race. The Europeans come over and they frequently bring pacemakers, and there are usually a few Aussies who want to go forward and spoil the party as well. A horse sitting outside that speed, with no cover, is doing far more work than the ones behind it.

Incentivise is the example that sticks with me. Shortest Cup favourite since 2000. It sat second and it ran second, beaten by the Chris Waller-trained runner on the day. That was a very, very good horse and it still got run down from that spot.

Where you actually want to be

The spot I want is off the pace, with cover. Cover is very, very important. Without A Fight is the perfect picture of it. Mark Zahra had him in that beautiful spot coming out of a Caulfield Cup. You could see the same thing years earlier with Bossy on Makybe Diva, getting into that sweet spot and sometimes cutting the corner as well.

That is the shape of it. You do not want to be going too wide on the corner. You want to save that ground, keep the cover, and then get clear running at the top of the straight so the horse can go bang when you ask. That is the run a Cup horse wants.

The one thing you cannot know early is the pressure. You have to form a view on how the speed will set up before you can be confident about where a horse will land. So work out the likely tempo first, then look for the horses that will settle off it with cover and get their gap in the straight. If your horse is in the first four, it is a cross from me.

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