Vintage Crop – Cult Hero

These days, horses trained in Ireland, France and the UK regularly run in (and win) the Melbourne Cup. However, back in the early 1990s, the possibility of a European trained horse winning the Melbourne Cup seemed like a distant pipe dream. Then, along came a horse called Vintage Crop in 1993 and he was the one that paved the way for all of those future European successes. Trained by the trailblazing Dermot Weld, this is the story of one of horseracing’s cult heroes, Vintage Crop.

Vintage Crop Breeding & Pedigree

It is fair to say that Vintage Crop wasn’t exactly bred in the purple. His sire, Rousillon, was a temperamental sort whose biggest wins came in the then Group 2 Queen Anne Stakes and the Group 1 Sussex Stakes and Prix Du Moulin. Rousillon was retired to the British National Stud where his initial covering fee was set at £12,500.

Vintage Crop’s dam, Overplay, was by Bustino and her biggest achievement was a third placed finish in the 1981 Ribblesdale Stakes. Her owners were from the USA, Bernard and Diana Firestone, and they decided to send her to be covered by Rousillon. In early 1987 she foaled down a flashy chestnut colt with three white socks and a white star on his face and Vintage Crop was born.

Vintage Crop – The Owner

Bred by Americans, born in the UK and owned and trained by Irishmen, Vintage Crop had a fittingly cosmopolitan background. Michael Smurfit, born in England but raised in Ireland, was his owner and he sent him into training with a trainer who had really begun to make his mark at that time, Dermot Weld.

Smurfit was born in 1936, a wealthy businessman who made his fortune from paper packaging. Born in St Helens on Merseyside, he attended school at the exclusive Clongowes Wood College in Kildare in Ireland. His son, Tony, inherited his father’s interest in horse racing and he currently has a few horses in training. However, none of them have ever come close to scaling the same heights as Vintage Crop.

Dermot Weld – The Trainer

Once Michael Smurfit bought Vintage Crop, the next decision he made would be crucial. Who would he get to train his new acquisition. At that particular time, Dermot Weld was one of Ireland’s leading handlers. Based on the Curragh in Rosewell House, Weld had already won some of the biggest races in his home country of Ireland and across the pond in the UK.

One of Dermot Weld’s ambitions as a trainer was to win a Group 1 on every continent. In 1977 he won his first two Irish Group 1s, the National Stakes with Diamonds Are Trumps and the Matron Stakes with Valley Forge. Sookera provided him with his first UK Group 1 too that year, winning the Cheveley Park Stakes at Newmarket.

In 1990 Weld ticked the North American box as he won the Belmont Stakes with Go And Go. A year later, Weld sent out Additional Risk to win the Hong Kong Mile, his first triumph at the top table in Asia. Next in his sights was Australia’s biggest race, but initially, Weld and Michael Smurfit had another target in mind for Vintage Crop, and it wasn’t even on the flat.

Champion Hurdle Plot

Vintage Crop was hard to keep right in his younger years. He seemed to be susceptible to picking up niggly injuries but Weld knew he had an engine so he advised Michael Smurfit to remain patient and to wait for the horse to come right.

Weld and Smurfit originally nominated the Champion Hurdle as Vintage Crop’s ultimate aim. He made his racecourse debut on October 17th 1991, in a two mile flat race at Thurles under Pat Shanahan at the age of four. An unconsidered 20/1 shot, Vintage Crop made mincemeat of his rivals that day, powering home to win by eight lengths.

A couple of months later, he won a maiden hurdle at Fairyhouse and he then followed that up with a Novice Hurdle win at Leopardstown’s Christmas meeting. Five months later, at Gowran Park in May, Vintage Crop reappeared in a 1m 6f flat handicap. Sent off as the 9/10 favourite, Mick Kinane steered him to victory and ensured his unbeaten record remained intact.

Cesarewitch Touch

In August 1992, Vintage Crop tasted his first ever defeat, finishing third in a Leopardstown handicap. In his defence, the 1m 1f trip was too sharp for him. However, he soon bounced back with a win at Tralee over 1m 6f on soft ground just a few weeks later. It was after this win that Weld first mentioned that a tilt at the Melbourne Cup could possibly be on the cards in the future.

His target remained the Champion Hurdle in March, but his preparations were far from conventional. In September 1992, Vintage Crop ran in the Group 1 Irish St Leger and was far from disgraced in fifth.

Next, he headed to Newmarket a month later for the Cesarewitch Handicap and Weld was confident of a huge run. The horse could be backed at 25/1 on the morning of the race but an avalanche of money came and he went off as the 5/1 favourite under Walter Swinburn.

His backers never had a moment of worry as he surged clear inside the final furlong to land the gamble by eight lengths. It was a perfectly executed plot and it proved that Vintage Crop was a serious stayer in the making. Next stop, the Cheltenham Festival the following March.

Cheltenham Disappointment

After his Newmarket heroics, Weld decided to give Vintage Crop some time off. He wouldn’t be seen on the track for five months but Weld knew he went well fresh and his next assignment was the 1993 Champion Hurdle. The son of Rousillon was bang there until a mistake at the fourth last knocked the stuffing out of him and he eventually finished sixth.

Yes, it was a disappointing result for Weld but he wasn’t too worried because after that dominant Cesarewitch win, he knew he had a proper flat stayer on his hands. The Champion Hurdle would prove to be the last time we saw Vintage Crop jump an obstacle in public as he would now fully focus on the flat.

Unchartered Territory

Weld and Smurfit now set their sights on doing something no European horse or trainer had ever done before, winning the Melbourne Cup. 1993 was the first year that the Melbourne Cup allowed foreign horses to run and Weld began to prepare his charge for the race that stops a nation.

Weld decided to keep Vintage Crop out of handicap company as he readied him for his Australian voyage. After Cheltenham, he had six runs on the flat between May and September, with his final Irish run coming in the 1993 Irish St Leger.

Vintage Crop landed his first Group 1 victory in that Curragh contest and soon afterwards, he went into quarantine in Sandown ahead of his marathon journey Down Under. In years gone by, Vintage Crop would have had to complete his quarantine in Australia and if that had been the case, he would have been unable to exercise and keep fit before the race.

However, Weld initiated the quarantine changes which enabled Vintage Crop to run and it opened up the race to International runners. The Ascot Gold Cup winner that year, Drum Taps, also travelled over for the race and he kept Vintage Crop company during the epic journey to Australia.

The Melbourne Cup Build Up

It was fair to say that the locals didn’t give Vintage Crop much of a chance in their blue riband race. It was widely accepted that the perfect prep for a Melbourne Cup bid was to run three days beforehand. The legendary trainer Bart Cummings, a twelve time winner of the Melbourne Cup, was particularly dismissive of Vintage Crop’s chances, describing the decision to travel over from Ireland as ‘madness’.

Weld recounted later that Vintage Crop did lose a bit of condition on the long journey to Australia but by the time of the race, he was back in tip top condition. Even better, the rain arrived the evening before the race to soften the ground and Weld’s confidence was growing.

The Race That Stops A Nation

The big day had finally arrived and the bookies priced up Vintage Crop at 14/1. Weld had made sure all the boxes were ticked and he was sure he had covered every angle possible. Now, his work was done and he had to rely on the magic of Mick Kinane in the saddle. He couldn’t have picked a better jockey for the job.

Vintage Crop broke well from the gates and Kinane settled him in around ninth place near the inside rail. Around half a mile from home Kinane switched his mount to the middle of the track to get some daylight and he started to push his mount along.

With around 300 metres remaining Vintage Crop started to eat up the ground and by the 100m pole, he had reeled in the leader. In the end, he surged clear for a three length victory and history had been made.

The Aftermath

Dermot Weld was in fine form after the race. He regaled the Aussie racing fans with lines from a famous Australian poem ‘A Bush Christening’. Weld then told the media that a poem called ‘The Man From Snowy River’ by the same poet, AB Patterson, inspired him to target the Melbourne Cup when he was a teenager.

The Australian public immediately took to the charismatic Irishman and in the aftermath of the race, he was honoured with the Key to the City of Melbourne. They realised what a monumental achievement winning the race was and they also appreciated what Weld had done to ‘internationalise’ their most important and lucrative horse race. Not only did Vintage Crop win it, he changed the face of The Melbourne Cup forever.

Vintage Crop Major Wins

Date	Venue	Race
17/10/1992	Newmarket	Cesarewitch Handicap (Class 2)
18/09/1993	Curragh	Irish St Leger (Group 1)
02/11/1993	Flemington	Melbourne Cup (Group 1 Handicap)
17/09/1994	Curragh	Irish St Leger (Group 1)
02/07/1995	Curragh	Curragh Cup (Group 3)
26/08/1995	Leopardstown	Ballycullen Stakes (Listed)

Later Years

Vintage Crop would go on to have plenty more success on the racetrack. Back on home soil he won a Listed race at Leopardstown on his first start back after a six month break and he then went on to finish a gallant second in the Ascot Gold Cup in June 1994.

In September, he added a second Irish St Leger to his CV and he headed back to Flemington to have another crack at the Melbourne Cup. Unfortunately, an injury disrupted his preparations for the 1994 renewal but he still ran his heart out to finish a very respectable seventh.

In 1995 Weld decided to have one final tilt at the Melbourne Cup. This time, his prep went a lot more smoothly and Weld was very happy with the condition of his horse before the race. However, unlike in 1993, Mick Kinane had to sit right out the back early and in the end, Vintage Crop just had too much ground to make up. To his credit, he stayed on like a train in the closing stages and got up to nick third, finishing four lengths behind the winner Doriemus.

Retirement, Death & Legacy

That would prove to be Vintage Crop’s last ever race. Michael Smurfit and Weld decided it was time to reward their horse for his stellar career of sixteen wins from twenty eight starts with a long and happy retirement at the Irish National Stud in County Kildare in Ireland. He became something of a tourist attraction, with Australian visitors especially keen to come and see the first ever European trained winner of the Melbourne Cup.

On the 14th of July 2014, the news broke that Vintage Crop had passed away at the grand old age of twenty seven. The story made headlines not only in Ireland, but it was also big news in Australia. The former manager of Racing Victoria, Greg Nicholls, stated soon after Vintage Crop’s death that “Weld was clearly a genius, Vintage Crop was a legend, and their dramatic appearance in 1993 significantly sped up the global ambition we had for the Melbourne Cup.”

Legacy

So what is Vintage Crop’s legacy? Well, what he will be most appreciated for is opening the door for other European horses to travel to Australia for the Melbourne Cup, though it must be noted that no other horse managed to match his feat until Media Puzzle in 2002, also trained by Dermot Weld.

In recent years, the floodgates have opened for European horses. Joseph O’Brien has won it twice, Charlie Appleby has won it and a couple of French trainers have won it too. However, none of those trainers’ horses would have been victorious if it wasn’t for the exploits of Vintage Crop in 1993.

The flashy chestnut will live long in the memories of racing fans all around the world and will be fondly remembered as another one of horse racing’s true cult heroes.

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