Britain’s Cross Counter wins Melbourne Cup

MELBOURNE: Cross Counter led a British one-two-three to win the coveted Aus$7.3 million (US$5.2 million) Melbourne Cup horse race at Flemington on Tuesday and give the renowned Godolphin stable their maiden victory after two decades of frustration.

The four-year-old gelding handed jockey Kerrin McEvoy his third victory in the famous 3,200-metre (two mile) handicap, the ‘race that stops a nation’, with Charlie Appleby the first English trainer to claim the trophy.

Racing out of barrier 19 on a rain-affected track, Cross Counter put on a withering burst of speed down the finishing straight to edge fellow British horses Marmelo and Prince of Arran and win Aus$4 million. Pre-race favourite Yucatan came 11th.

But there was sadness among the 100,000-strong crowd with Irish five-year-old The CliffsofMoher, ridden by champion jockey Ryan Moore, euthanised after suffering a fractured right shoulder early in the race.

“I’m just lucky I can ride light on these lovely stayers prepared unbelievably well by Godolphin and Charlie Appleby. And a third Melbourne Cup, woo!” said an ecstatic McEvoy, who also won in 2000 and 2016. “I’m over the moon.”

McEvoy’s wife will also be happy with her husband — who steered Redzel to victory at the world’s richest turf race, The Everest, in Sydney last month — after he promised that if he won, he’d buy her a new house.