GOODNESS GRACIOUS ME - the most famous Australian Cup and how Vic almost lost Vo!

Think of this. It’s the Monday of a Labour Day long weekend in Melbourne and there are 33,369 at Flemington. That’s March 14, Moomba Monday back then.

It’s Australia’s bi-centenary year, 1988, television presenter Jo Pearson was the Moomba Monarch, that crown handed over (appropriately) to Con the Fruiterer the following year.

But the real parade was at Flemington.

As Les Carlyon wrote of the day: “It was billed as the ultimate clash of the heavyweights, the horsey version of Ali v Frazier”.

In the blue corner was the Queensland scrapper Vo Rogue, in the red, the Kiwi slugger Bonecrusher.

“So how come Floyd Patterson, real name Dandy Andy out of Coleraine - got there.”

Goodness gracious me indeed. At 125-1.

"The biggest anti-climax in decades - racing's equivalent of Janine Hayes (Clive Turnbull) winning a federal election or Norm Gallagher (John Setka) being voted King Of Moomba (to update Les), moved to a delightful scene in the winner's stall."

"Jim Cerchi, a dead-set ringer for Gary Cooper, was brushing at tears. The owner of a slightly scuffed float that has been seen at racetracks from Manangatang to Doomben, a battler since his first ride in 1926 when Lord Bruce was Prime Minister and Spearfelt won the Cup."

As Flemington prepares for the 162nd running of the Australian Cup, note it has been run over distances like 3627m and 3528m until 1962, but this year is hanging tickets on “the modern Vo” - Pride Of Jenni and a re-birthed Fashions On The Field, as we nod to great Cups gone by.

Oh, and a copycat free drink from the club if Jenni, does what she did for the cross-town Melbourne Racing Club a few weeks ago.

You will log in Lonhro’s emotional farewell off the deck against Delzao, Northerly twice, a year apart, Makybe Diva in her prime, it’s a cavalcade of memorable names but do you remember Cascadian is the reigning winner of the last two?

Jim Cerchi and Dandy Andy Australian Cup Day (Herald Sun)

1988 was different. Not just our bicentenary under Bob Hawke.

It was the year both Home And Away and A Current Affair debuted on our television screens. Charlene (Kylie) and Scott (Jason) got married on Neighbours - some two million watched.

The then VFL brought in the 50m penalty. It didn’t stop the Hawks thrashing the Demons by almost a century in the grand final.

AFL record breaker Scott Pendlebury was born, Gerard Healy won the Brownlow, Duncan Armstrong gold over Matt Biondi in the 200m at the Seoul Olympics.

Telecom offered a “Walkabout” mobile phone for $5200. The first brick.

But at Flemington, the VRC were offering team badges for $2 to the fans for sale. The blue ones said, “Go Rogue Go”, maybe they could have saved a little with just “Go Vo Go” and red ones with “C’mon Crusher”.

(There were no commemorative badges for Dandy Andy, but trainer Jim Cerchi, then 76, and father of 13, would later pull a piece of paper from his sports jacket over his argyle pullover that had the beautifully handwritten words C’mon Dandy Andy etched upon it).

It had been some set-up. Bonecrusher had already raced himself into equine immortality in that epic Cox Plate “of the century” in 1986. 

He’d already won the New Zealand and Australian Derby in his classic year, a stellar Melbourne Spring at four, Underwood Stakes at Caulfield Stakes into that Cox Plate, came back in that table thumping Australian Cup over At Talaq “will the champ get up, he lunges, yes, or a dead heat” said the accurate one Bill Collins. The champ got up.

It was a quick turnaround, and I was there behind the scenes with Frank Ritchie, son Shaune, and colourful owner Auckland businessman and gambler Peter Mitchell when he won the Air New Zealand Stakes.

As Lynlea Small, wife of Vo’s rider Cyril, reminded me in her detailed extensive book “The Vo Rogue Show” - “so impressive was Bonecrusher’s performances, it prompted Bruce Clark to declare in his Sunday write-up on February 28, 1988 “Forget Rogue.”

Bonecrusher had been a $3250 purchase for Mitchell, who had the older brother “Superbrat” - and it was no fluke. Mitchell was a devotee of Harold Lampton, a retired postmaster, who studied pedigrees and released books like “The First Scientific Principles of Thoroughbred Breeding Part 1 in 1954. He alerted Mitchell to the Pag-Asa-Imitations lines and hence Bonecrusher, named because he could do just that (unless gelded).

Vo Rogue, would have surely tested Lampton’s theories, by a maiden (Ivor Prince) out of a maiden (Vow), he was probably over-priced at $5,000 (Queensland earth-mover Jeff Perry took 80% and Sunshine Coast car salesman John Murray kept twenty percent originally.)

Perry set his first eyes on the scrubby weanling and called him “Erky” - “what’s that.”

But of course, Vo, on the day The Crusher won the 87 Australia Cup, ran five seconds (30 lengths) quicker in the Creswick Stakes on the same card. 

A year later, he’d won the William Reid (1200m), Orr (1400m), Blamey (1600m), St George (1800m), before Vic Rail dropped him back to snap the 1400m Futurity into that 88 Australian Cup. (That race though would become a pivotal postscript - see below).

Yet, the stage was well and truly set.

General Nediym had won a riveting Newmarket Handicap (Notoire, Toledo, Scandinavia (the grandmother of Back Caviar) Catalan Opening, all chasing on the traditional Saturday headliner.

But a cool public holiday was bustling with the big show. The market said only two hopes. Authaal was a $7.3m yearling for Sheik Mohammad, Brent Thomsen the superstar jockey, knew a thing or two about blue bloods, he’d missed Duclify’s 80-1 win over Manikato in the 1979 version of the Australian Cup, and wanted to watch this one from the grandstand.

Jim Cerchi offered “The Babe” the Dandy Andy ride, he rejected, then Jim put him down anyway. So, he got some view. It was evens Vo, 5/2 Crusher and an easing 125-1 Dandy Andy.

Bruce McAvaney's scene setter and call

There are no spoiler alerts here. Bruce McAvaney calling for Channel 10 -  “has he (Vo Rogue) gone out too hard? 

“They are not going to get this superstar…..here’s a boil over.”

Bill Collins: “Oh he’s got it won I’d say….can it be a boil over…goodness gracious me.”

Bill Collins' call

Brent Thomsen - “I’d have been happy to run a place.”

Early the next morning, he was in hospital with wife Cheryl as they welcomed son Ben into the world.

As for the vanquished.

Jeffy Perry - “We still ran second mate, it's better than a slap in the belly with a wet fish.”

Frank Ritchie -” I can’t put my finger on an excuse.”

Bonecrusher would only win once again, despite running second to Beau Zam before the Queen in Canberra and returning to Japan for an ill-fated Cup campaign.

Vo, well he’d win the next two Australian Cups, 10 other races, including a Winfield Classic in Perth, a 1010m sprint in Brisbane and finally a Sydney win in a George Main in Sydney.

But as we read below, it was almost the end of the Vic and Vo show.

Dandy Andy well he won the Warrnambool Cup just only a month or so after that Australian Cup

1988 - the year Triple J launched their iconic Hottest 100 voting contest - won by Joy Division’s timeless “Love Will Tear Us Apart.”

The US #1 that year was Rick Astley’s “Never Gonna Give You Up.”

The UK #1 that year was Kylie’s (Charlene’s) - “I Should Be So Lucky.”

All seem most appropriate looking back now.

Come on Jenni - do your thang Saturday.

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HOW VIC ALMOST LOST VO!

In Lynlea Small’s book on Vo Rogue, she revealed the fallout and camp's concerns (well those of Jeff Perry) after the Futurity win before the Australian Cup.

And more so physical threats between owner (Perry) and trainer (Rail) and the potential transfer of the horse.

“The horse can’t win, He’s not right. He hasn’t recovered from the Futurity Stakes run. If the race was run yesterday, I would have scratched him. He’ll run nearer last than first,” she quoted Jeff Perry as saying before the Australian Cup.

As the dust settled, Jeff’s concerns seemingly didn’t. VRC vets reported a “strained heart.”

“Jeff was furious with Vic, Jeff blamed Vic for Vo’s condition.”

“The two had an altercation in the car on the way home with Jeff telling Vic that he didn’t deserve the horse,” Lynlea wrote.

“With the horse in the spelling hard Jeff was contemplating the horse’s future, and that of his trainer. A young (unnamed) Brisbane trainer had started to make some inroads among the Brisbane training ranks with his small team.

“Jeff, still angry with Vic over Vo’s strained heart, was considering switching the horse to him. However, after some soul searching and a lengthy discussion with Vic, followed by a stern warning, Vo returned to Vic’s stable.

“He knew he’d done the wrong thing,” Jeff said of Vic. “He knew he’d fucked up, that’s what it amounted to.”

(from The Vo Rogue Show - Lynlea Small (Melbourne Books)

PS: The 2025 Moomba Monday public holiday meeting was run at Warrnambool.

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