MV On Track 2018

32 ON TRACK MAGAZINE When York was handed a serious riding charge for his ride on another horse, Denham did something he wasn’t renowned for… he swallowed his pride and picked up the phone. “Want you back on the big horse,” he grunted down the line. Clunk! He hung up the phone. Cassidy didn’t hesitate for a second. He wanted to be on the big horse, too. He knew the big horse could win the Cox Plate, even if others had their doubts. Shane Dye — also a brilliant hoop from New Zealand just like Cassidy — had no doubt that he had the horse to beat Might and Power in the Cox Plate: the mare Tycoon Lil. Dye made some bold declarations before the race, claiming Tycoon Lil would humiliate Might and Power. When the pair went to the barriers for the Caulfield Stakes, it was effectively a match race — and Cox Plate favouritism would go to the winner. When Might and Power got around the mare and easily won, all the pressure was suddenly on the horse that had earlier that preparation seemed spent. Forget worrying about the weight of punter expectation. There was also the weight of history: no horse except Rising Fast in 1954 had won the big three of the Cox Plate and Melbourne and Caufield Cups. And no horse since Phar Lap — no less — in 1931 had won the Cox Plate as the reigning Melbourne Cup champion. Dye still kept up the verbal tongue-fu in the press, telling Cassidy how he would outsmart him in the Cox Plate. Cassidy, for a change, kept relatively silent. “I’m just confident in the horse I’m on,” he told reporters. “We will see.” When Cassidy walked into The Valley that day, he felt like the cabbie had misheard him and accidentally taken him to the MCG. People were streaming in. Later that day, the full house sign went up with more than 38,000 people sardined into the course. “They were there to see a rockstar,” Cassidy recalls. In one of the earlier races, the Moonee Valley Vase, Cassidy had led the entire way on Clarry Conners’ Mossman and broke the race record. The Vase was over the same distance as the Cox Plate — 2040 metres — and it only confirmed Cassidy’s plan for what he wanted to do with Might and Power. So did the legendary former jockey George Moore, who was in the mounting yard before the Cox Plate. “How would you ride him, George?” Cassidy asked the man who rode the great Tulloch to 19 victories (although not in the 1960 W.S. Cox Plate, when Neville Sellwood was on board). “Just get him into a situation where he can put his legs down,” Moore said. In other words, lead — and don’t chase. When the gates crashed back, the huge crowd roared like they were at a footy match. Might and Power slightly missed the start, while Tycoon Lil flew the gates. Dye kept pushing up, pushing up, keeping Cassidy and the big horse wider and wider. “But I wasn’t concerned,” Cassidy recalls, “because I knew what I had underneath me.” Cassidy couldn’t hear it, but he would later say that racecaller Bryan Martin’s description of the race was the highlight of his career. The line that stands out came at the 1000-metre mark and Cassidy still gets goosebumps when he watches a replay. “J. Cassidy controls the Cox Plate at the halfway mark on Might and Power. He’s out by two lengths. Tycoon Lil second…” They were there to see a rockstar. -Jim Cassidy