Flemington

18 The weight-for-age 2000 metre championship race that has been long known as the Mackinnon Stakes used to be part of Victoria Derby Day, the opening day of the Melbourne Cup Carnival, ever since Cup Week went to a four-day racing format more than a century and a half ago. It was called the Melbourne Stakes back then. It became the L.K.S. Mackinnon Stakes in 1936. Five years ago, in 2016, the Victoria Racing Club Board decided to switch the Mackinnon to the fourth and final day of the Carnival, increasing its prizemoney to $2 million. Instead of being a stepping stone to glory, the Mackinnon Stakes became the feature act of the final day. In its previous Derby Day position, for many horses it was an essential pathway to success in the Melbourne Cup a few days later. Champion trainer Bart Cummings often used a run in the Mackinnon to bring his horses to the peak of fitness for the Cup. His father Jim Cummings had followed that path successfully with Comic Court in 1950. Even a beaten run in the Mackinnon was sufficient to top the Cummings horses off for the Melbourne Cup, as Think Big proved on two occasions back in 1974/75. Let’s Elope (1991) and Rogan Josh (1999) both won the Mackinnon on their way to Melbourne Cup victory. Since it worked for Jim and Bart Cummings, other trainers tried the same formula. Mick Robins found it worked for his dual Cups winner Rain Lover, in 1968 and 1969. Several Melbourne Cup winners went on to secure victory in the Mackinnon in the year or years following. Altogether, 20 Cup winners have a Mackinnon (or Melbourne Stakes) win on their record. A further 24 winners of the Mackinnon were placegetters in Melbourne Cups. The logic of changing the date in 2016 was sound. After Ireland’s Vintage Crop won the Cup in 1993, more and more horses arrived directly from the northern hemisphere with the Cup their object. These horses had training preparations very different fromAustralian horses. Racing in top company in Europe’s spring and summer, they HOW FINAL DAY BECAME MACKINNON STAKES DAY BY ANDREW LEMON A STORY FROM THE VAULT