Oliver still fights back tears

The 2002 Melbourne Cup win on Media Puzzle, the greatest triumph that came on the heels of the biggest tragedy Damien Oliver’s life, remains an emotional scar for the champion jockey.

Almost seven years on, Oliver (37) struggled to hold back tears last night as he talked of the “toughest week I’ve ever had to deal with”  – the death of his brother Jason, also a jockey, after a track fall, and his tribute to Jason on winning the Cup a week later on Media Puzzle for Irish trainer Dermot Weld.

Interviewed by Bryan Martin as part of Tuesdays at Champions – talks at the Australian Racing Museum and Hall of Fame in Federation Square by key people in racing – Oliver twice had to compose himself before continuing his reminiscing about one of racing’s most poignant events.

Asked what he said to Jason when he blew a kiss to the heavens on passing the post, Oliver said: “We had a bit of a saying, we’d say to each other, ‘My boy’. That’s what I said.”

Applause from a most supportive audience eased the moment for the jockey and enabled Martin to change to a less emotive topic. Before then, Oliver told:

How he had considered Media Puzzle to be a strong chance in the Melbourne Cup after qualifying by winning the Geelong Cup;

How, while playing golf in Melbourne eight days before the Cup,  he had a phone call from a jockey friend to tell him Jason had fallen in a Perth trial and Damien should hurry to WA;

How the five hours getting there were “just awful”;

How it was “really sad seeing your brother in a bad way and you can’t do anything about it – you don’t even get  chance to say goodbye”;

And how, after talking with his family after Jason died, he decided to ride because if he had sat at home in Perth with them watching Media Puzzle win the Cup Jason would have said, “Bloody idiot, what are you doing here?” (Jason died at 33. Their jockey father, Ray, was killed in a race fall when Damien was only three.)

Oliver’s emotions and the support he had from family, friends and colleagues as he returned to ride on Derby day (on the Saturday before the Cup) and on Cup day, wearing Jason’s riding trousers, then went back to Perth for the funeral, are touchingly told in The Cup, a remarkable new book by American author Eric O’Keefe, who travelled to Australia and to Ireland to research what he calls the most thrilling, and moving, episode in thoroughbred racing history.

O’Keefe’s story of the tragedy and triumph of the 2002 Melbourne Cup is published by The Slattery Media Group. It will be on sale nationally in all good bookstores on August 1 (RRP $34.95). Orders can be placed online at slatterymedia.com/books.