Letts and the Loving Cup

John Letts held the 1972 Melbourne Cup aloft as part of the celebrations minutes after riding the winner, Piping Lane. The next time he touched that ‘Loving Cup’ was last year, when he went to Tasmania as an ambassador with the Emirates Melbourne Cup Tour.

“I put my hand on it and said, ‘Thank you,’ ” Letts said at Flemington today. “It changed my life, it really did.”

Beldale Ball in 1980 gave Letts his second Cup, but the rider has been associated with every winner since 1993, the year Vintage Crop became the first northern hemisphere-trained horse to win.

The continued role past the post comes from Letts’ job as television “outrider”, interviewing the winner after he pulls up on the course. And with him each interview is Banjo, the stock horse Letts named for long-serving clerk of the course John Patterson.

Letts and Banjo will be there again this November, but before then Letts will be part of the Australasian tour to promote the Cup. He was one of six ambassadors named yesterday by the Victoria Racing Club – the others are Cup-winning jockeys Jim Johnson (Gatum Gatum 1963, Rain Lover 1968-69), Roy Higgins (Light Fingers 1965, Red Handed 1967), Greg Hall (Subzero 1992) and John Marshall (Rogan Josh 1999), and former chief steward Des Gleeson, who “policed” more than 30 Melbourne Cups.

Marshall led Rogan Josh around the Flemington mounting yard as part of the launch. “He’s 17, but I tell you what, he’s fitter than me,” Marshall said as the gelding pranced around in his Cup rug. He now lives at Living Legends, the “old horses’ home”, at Oaklands Junction near Melbourne Airport.

Rogan Josh’s appearance was a highlight for the “young ambassadors” at the launch, children from Kensington and Spotswood primary schools.

The 2009 Cup, 1650 grams of pure 18ct gold and valued at $125,000, will be the centrepiece of the seventh tour, which starts on September 28 will take in 23 cities and towns in the leadup to Tuesday, November 3 – Mt Wycheproof (Vic.), Avoca (Vic.), Colac (Vic.), Adelaide (SA), Kangaroo Island (SA), Ballina (NSW), Gold Coast (Qld.), Brisbane (Qld.), Auckland (NZ), Palmerston North (NZ), Invercargill (NZ), Perth (WA), Karratha (WA), Ingham (Qld.), Bowen (Qld.), Cloncurry (Qld.), Tambo (Qld.), Sydney (NSW), Camden (NSW), Cowra (NSW), Crookwell (NSW), Dederang (Vic.) and Alexandra (Vic.).

They will add to the 150 centres visited and 160,000km covered in past tours. Before the Australasian tour, the Cup will be taken overseas to business network functions in Paris, London, Dublin and Abu Dhabi as part of the VRC’s international strategy – northern-hemisphere runners have been an integral part of the Melbourne Cup since Vintage Crop, the first of trainer Dermot Weld’s two winners, first ran in 1993.

Weld’s other winner was Media Puzzle in 2002, the Cup that resonated even more than usual as Damien Oliver rode to victory only days after his brother Jason, also a jockey, was killed in a track fall.

The Slattery Media Group has published a book on the tragedy and triumph of that Cup, called The Cup. Written by Eric O’Keefe, it is on sale at all good bookstores and online (RRP $34.95). Go to slatterymedia.com/books