For someone who freely admits he is usually the loudest in the grandstand, Rod Bain could find no words as the field ran past the post in race seven at Flemington last Tuesday.
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Knight’s Choice, ridden by jockey Robbie Dolan and trained by Seymour’s John Symons in partnership with Sheila Laxon, and owned by Rod’s son, Cameron, had stormed home in the final 200 metres to win the Melbourne Cup in a photo finish.
“I normally go berserk. I ride the horses, I really ride them and I’m very, very loud. People look around at me like ‘who is this d***head’, but I could see what was unfolding, and I was speechless,” Rod said.
“I was watching this horse, and I was just that focused on watching, because I knew he could do it, some of his times are just phenomenal, and I was just going ‘he’s going to win’, people would think you’re mad, but I just couldn’t get it out.
“All of a sudden, they said it was going to a photo, but a voice behind me said ‘you’ve won, Rod’, and it was Brad Bishop.
“Brad (worked) for Racing.com and he's from Seymour, and he said ‘you’ve won’, and then Renee (Rod’s daughter) screamed, and the crowd just opened up for us again and everybody’s looking and waving and screaming, it was just such a surreal, surreal (moment).”
The path to arguably the most famous trophy in all of Australian sport has a distinct regional Victorian flavour this year, with Seymour playing a central role in the triumph.
It all stems back to 1964, when Rod began work for Sloane’s Radio as an apprentice radio and TV technician, with his first job being to set up the PA system on race days at Seymour Racecourse. It would there that his boss, Mr Jack Sloane, told him “there's nothing more in racing than to win a Melbourne Cup”.
It wouldn’t be long after getting his first taste of the races that Rod made the connection that ultimately led to the Bain family getting their hands on the biggest prize in Australian racing.
“When I started playing football, John Symons was a good footballer, and he didn’t have his licence, so I used to take him to football training, and he always said, I’d love to train race horses,” Rod said.
“So anyhow, when I left Sloane's and I went into a service station in Emily St, the BP, John started training, and he used to call in and get his fuel on his way to the races.
“I had a little share in the first horse he ever trained, which was called Bachelor’s Fashion, and it wasn’t much good, but the association with John has been from then, he started training about 45 years ago.
“I’ve had lots of horses in that time, and I got a good horse in that period, about 1983 it was.
“My son (Cameron) was only young then and he was still going to Seymour High School, and he’d come down and work, and he saw the jubilation when this horse won in Melbourne for me, and he thought ‘I’ve never seen Dad so excited.’”
The thrill of that triumph ultimately led Cameron to become invested in horses too, according to Rod, and despite a busy schedule that sees him now travelling constantly for work — even flying in from China on the morning of the Cup — he has persisted, leading to the ultimate pay-off.
“He’s had great success with the horses with John, and then obviously Sheila (Laxon), after she won (the Melbourne Cup) with Ethereal in 2001, they have basically been together, so our association’s long,” Rod said.
“John’s always said to me ‘I’ll win you a group 1 one day, I don’t know which one it’ll be, but I promise I’ll win you a group 1.’
“So Cameron’s persevered, and bang, look at the result. Here we are, and we’ve got the Melbourne Cup.”
The $4.4 million windfall for winning the Melbourne Cup is validation for Cameron, after turning down big offers for Knight’s Choice in order to give Rod the full experience with the horse.
After a horror first-up run on a tight track at Kilcoy, Knight’s Choice made up four lengths in 50m to finish second in a photo at Ipswich in its second start, which is when Rod knew they had a special horse on their hands.
“He (Cameron) rang me and he said ‘how did the horse go, Dad?’, he’s too busy to watch those races,” Rod said.
“I said ‘ran second, mate, but I’ve just seen something special. I said I think this is the best horse you’ve ever had.’
“From there, he won three in a row, and boom, there’s an offer of $1.5 million for the horse, (but Cameron said) ‘Nah, I’m not selling it.’
“Then we go to the Winx Guineas, which is the most prestigious three-year-old race in Queensland. It’s named that because Winx won its first race on that track.
“Well, it was a Winx performance to win, came from last and went whoosh, so the phone rings the next day — $2 million.
“Cameron said no, so the offer comes back again, ‘$2.3 million, that’s as far as we’ll go’, but Cameron said ‘No, I’m keeping it for my father, we enjoy racing together so much.’”
The rest is history, so they say, with Dolan steering a masterful ride at Flemington to deliver Cameron and Rod, and also John and Sheila, the Melbourne Cup.
“I’ve got to give credit to John and Sheila,” Rod said.
“John’s picked all the horses we’ve had ... he doesn’t buy dear horses, but he has an eye for horses, and Sheila knows how to train a stayer, how to put the right fitness into a stayer.
“After the Winx Guineas we went out for dinner, and we're sitting in the restaurant and she said, ‘I promise you we’ll win the Melbourne Cup with this horse’.
“What they’ve endured in their training life has been the highest ups and the lowest downs, but to their credit, what a training combination. Sheila has had two runners in the Melbourne Cup for two wins. Who is going to beat that?
“Everybody was saying down there (in Melbourne) after hearing all the stories, someone needs to make a movie out of this.”
To have now reached the pinnacle of horse racing in Australia, but to have done so while retaining the connection to Seymour, means the world to Rod.
“Oh, it’s just incredible, absolutely incredible,” he said.
“My ambition has always been to win the Seymour Cup, but I seem to think we might have gone one better, but that’ll come.”
Nearly a week on, he still struggles to find the words to describe exactly what the group from Seymour has achieved.
“It is crazy, it’s just a dream. I’ve been in business, I know a lot of people, and I’ve been involved with horses for a long time, I just enjoy it,” he said.
“The amount of people that are ringing up and saying how good it is, you deserve it and all of this, you just feel so humbled, it’s incredible.”