Twilight Payment wins Melbourne Cup for Joseph O'Brien

Mobility, optimism, inventiveness and a willingness to accept innovation are defined as the key characteristic of a good frontiersmen, which sums up Joseph O’Brien’s mercurial approach to his still fledgling training career.

Three years after he became the youngest trainer to win the $5.5 million Melbourne Cup (G1) with Rekindling, the 27-year-old from Ireland did it again Monday U.S. time with a 25-1 long shot.

Twilight Payment produced a brilliant display of frontrunning as O’Brien scored the fourth ever Irish success in the race, joining Dermot Weld as a two-time winner of the two-mile race.

It meant that O’Brien’s father Aidan continued his wait for an elusive first win in the world’s richest turf handicap. In a repeat of 2017 he settled for second behind his son. Tiger Moth (5-1) ran a huge race from an outside draw but simply ran out of turf to chase down Twilight Payment, losing by a half-length.

After coming in third in 2018 and second last year, 8-year-old English gelding Prince Of Arran (8-1) finished third.

Aidan O’Brien’s Ballydoyle team suffered the cruelest blow when Anthony Van Dyck, third this time last year in the Breeders’ Cup Turf, suffered a fractured fetlock in the final furlong and had to be euthanized.

Known as the “Race That Stops a Nation,” the Melbourne Cup was instead the race that woke up Joseph O’Brien. He was watching back home at 4 a.m. Tuesday in County Kilkenny as the coronavirus forced racing at Flemington behind closed doors, the colorful, intoxicating – and often intoxicated – crowd instead roaring its encouragement at televisions.

“I know how lucky I am to be in this position,” he said. “Dad has won a lot of big races, and he’ll be as happy for me to have won as I would have been for him.”

Joseph O’Brien, disbelieving jockey Jye McNeil and Twilight Payment gave Australian publishing and casino baron Lloyd Williams a record seventh victory in the race.

“You do have to pinch yourself,” O’Brien said. “It’s just a privilege to train these horses. It’s a tough game, but we’re just really appreciative and thankful for the chances and support we get.”

A 7-year-old Teofilo gelding, Twilight Payment was one of five Irish-trained horses in the 24-runner field. He broke first from post 12 and confidently swaggered clear of rivals, underlining the hope his trainer had after back-to-back group wins at the Curragh this summer. He became the first Melbourne Cup winner to lead at every call since Might And Power in 1997.

“His form this year was really solid through the summer,” O’Brien said. “He had a huge will to win and never stopped fighting all the year to the line. It’s a very special feeling for all the team.”

The victory came three weeks after Twilight Payment finished third in the 1 3/4-mile Irish St. Leger (G1) in September, a sign that he might improve on his 11th-place finish in last year’s Melbourne Cup.

“This means the world to us,” O’Brien’s traveling lad Mark Power said at Flemington Racecourse. “You don’t get a feeling better than this right now. It would have been nice for Joseph and all the guys to be here, too. Don’t worry though; we'll celebrate for them all right.”

Luckily for Power’s party planning, Melbourne just emerged from a three-month lockdown in time for a race that is a state holiday as well as a national obsession.

For McNeil, who was riding in it for the first time, this moment will take some beating after a textbook ride that delivered to the letter on every racing instruction issued.

“It was the plan to always be forward,” he said. “Obviously with where he was in the (betting) market I wasn’t feeling a lot of pressure. But when you have got to go forward there is some pressure to get it right. Thankfully it all came together.

McNeil is also a new father, so he might not completely empathize with a world that considers 2020 a year worth forgetting.

“There’s too many emotions,” McNeil said. “It’s a very big moment. I’m not worried about the empty grandstands at all. To get the opportunity to partner Twilight Payment, it’s very overwhelming.”