Melbourne Cup 2024: Knight's Choice wins, stunning punters and ...

A one-time bus driver who struggled to get a jockey’s licence in the United Kingdom, Laxon moved to New Zealand in the late 1980s and married the late training great Laurie Laxon.

A successful jockey and trainer here, her career reached its zenith in 2001 when she trained New Zealand mare Ethereal to win the Caulfield-Melbourne Cup double for the Peter and Phillip Vela, owners of New Zealand Bloodstock.

That made her the first-ever female trainer to win the Melbourne Cup, later joined by Gai Waterhouse with Fiorente in 2013.

Laxon now trains with husband John Symons and has two Melbourne Cups 23 years apart, the first female to win the race twice.

She was full of praise for jockey Robbie Dolan’s ride.

“We didn’t give him any instructions, he just knew what to do,” she said.

“I am thrilled to win the Cup and it’s the people’s Cup, and that is what it is all about.”

With victory, Laxon maintained her 100% winning record in the race.

“I better stop there (two from two),” she quipped.

Laxon and Symons may not be pin-up trainers in Australian racing, training on a smaller scale on the Sunshine Coast these days after moving from Victoria.

But Dolan certainly is one of racing’s pin-up boys and not just for his exploits in the saddle.

Dolan is a respected jockey but better known in the general population as the singing jockey after he appeared on the Australian version of television show The Voice in 2022.

That has propelled Dolan into the unusual situation of sometimes being asked to sing as part of the after-races entertainment at meetings he has ridden at.

He is a product of the modern racing world, with Insta-fame and bleached blonde hair but forever now tied to Laxon, Symons and Knight’s Choice.

Having his first-ever ride in the Melbourne Cup, Dolan produced what champion jockey James McDonald called “one of the greatest Cup-winning rides ever”.

Knight’s Choice was in the rear group at the top of the long Flemington straight and was looking to take an inside gap until he was beaten to it so Dolan had to weave between runners at the 300m when he still looked an unrealistic winning hope.

But as others faded, particularly those wider on the track, Knight’s Choice found a turbo button nobody knew he possessed, surging with and then past Warp Speed to grab the iconic victory in a photo finish.

Dolan was stunned. And emotional, the life-changing moment made all the sweeter by his father Bobby having travelled out from Ireland to surprise him on Sunday.

While it was his first Melbourne Cup, Dolan says it didn’t feel like it.

“I didn’t know what to expect, but I feel like I’ve ridden it 10 times because I have ridden it in my head 100 times,” 28-year-old Dolan told broadcaster Nine.

“To win it with him [father Bobby] here and my little daughter Maisie and my partner Christine, I’m going to cry again.

“Look, you can’t do it without [trainers] Sheila and John. They were so confident in this horse even before he got to this race.

“A lot of people doubted them. And to be honest, I didn’t.”

The love fest was mutual, Symons and Laxon from another era heaping praise on the young man whose career, and life, had minutes earlier gone to another level.

“What a great ride by Robbie,” said Symons.

“He stayed in, took the risk, went through the pack.

“I was worried and he got further back than we’d talked about, but great ride.

“What a thrill.”

The Cup was a disaster for favourite punters as the likes of Buckaroo, Vauban and Onesmoothoperator all got back in the field and only Buckaroo really gave his supporters a reason to yell at the television before he faded.

As for the New Zealand-trained horses they ran as the market suggested, all brave but without excuses considering where the winner was able to launch his winning run from.

The victory may have had its foundations at least partially in New Zealand, Wales and Ireland but Symons is a true-blue Australian and for a nice change so too is Knight’s Choice, an increasingly rare Australian-bred winner of their greatest race.

With a Japanese horse second and former European galloper Okita Soushi third it proved again the Cup is now a global race.

Laxon gets her own unique place in its history. Dolan will get more Instagram followers and bookings, both on the mic and in the saddle.

And Knight’s Choice will get some respect nobody knew he deserved.

Michael Guerin wrote his first nationally published racing articles while still in school and started writing about horse racing and the gambling industry for the Herald as a 20-year-old in 1990. He became the Herald’s racing editor in 1995 and covers the world’s biggest horse racing carnivals.