IT'S not often you want rain on your parade, but for Newcastle's Tony Price and his fellow owners of Gold Trip, that's exactly what they are hoping for in the $8 million Melbourne Cup (3200 metres) on Tuesday.
Price, who steered Wests to a hat-trick of Newcastle rugby league grand final wins in the late 1990s, has been involved in thoroughbred racing as an owner or breeder for three decades but will have his first Melbourne Cup runner on Tuesday.
"It's very exciting," Price said on Monday from Melbourne after a round of golf with a group of friends including champion jockey Damien Oliver.
"Obviously everyone dreams about it, so to have one in the race is good, and it has a live chance I think.
"We come [to the meeting] all the time, but to have a runner, it's a little bit surreal."
Price was hoping for a wet track to enhance Gold Trip's hopes and said on Monday afternoon that dark skies were looming. A high chance of rain was forecast for Monday and Tuesday at Flemington, which was a Soft 6.
Price and another former Newcastle rugby league player, Todd Buckingham, are among the owners of the import syndicated by Hunter team, Australian Bloodstock, who claimed the 2014 Cup with Protectionist.
Australian Bloodstock director Jamie Lovett said it was a case of "wetter the better" for Gold Trip, a $17 chance with Bet365 on Monday.
Lovett said the concern for their Caulfield Cup (2400m) runner-up was the extra distance and the topweight of 57.5 kilograms.
"A few have come out, but I think track conditions will play a big part," Lovett said.
"But I'd say we'll get our chance. He's just got to run the trip with the big weight.
"He's got to be a hope of running into the money hopefully. I wouldn't think it would be a winning chance, but you never know.
"You would say he's bred not to get [the distance], but he wouldn't be the first one to defy his breeding.
"That's the big query, whether he can run the trip, and we won't know until Tuesday."
The six-year-old entire has won just once in 15 starts but has placed eight times and he raced against some of the world's best stayers in Europe before coming to Australia last year.
In France, he won at group 2 level over 2200m before finishing top three in four of his five attempts in group 1 company between 2100m and 2400m. That included a 2.4 lengths fourth in the famous Prix de l'Arc de Triomphe in 2020.
His debut in Australia last year was delayed when Racing Victoria vets deemed him lame and scratched him from the Cox Plate.
Other setbacks extended his break between races to a year, before he started with a third in the Winter Challenge (1500m) at Rosehill in July.
He was then third in the group 3 Naturalism (2000m) at Caulfield, fifth in the group 1 Turnbull Stakes (2000m) at Flemington before his narrow defeat in the Caulfield Cup.
Connections decided to push on to the Cup after a luckless ninth in the Cox Plate (2040m), where he was denied a clear run in the straight.
The Ciaron Maher and David Eustace-trained challenger was mentioned in vet inspection reports in recent days but was passed fit after final checks on Monday.
Last Thursday, vets said "the horse displayed some heat in the right front foot and was re-examined as a precaution. There was no heat present upon re-inspection and the horse remains in a suitable condition to accept".
"It was nothing," Lovett said. "He just got reshod and had a bit of heat at the end of his toe but it settled down after an hour, so I think he's as good as gold.
"It's just a big thrill to have him in all three big races this year. The owners are having the time of their lives. It's why they do it."
Lovett believed Gold Trip, to be ridden by Mark Zahra from gate 14, was "a genuine each-way chance" on Tuesday.
For Price, it was a dream to have a runner in the Caulfield Cup, Cox Plate and Melbourne Cup.
His biggest win so far in ownership was the group 1 Champagne Stakes with the Mick Price-trained and Oliver-ridden Seabrook in 2018.
"We breed a few horses under Whitegate Pastoral, also we've got a few horses and cattle up at Vacy," Price said.
"We race a fair few but this is our first horse with Australian Bloodstock as a syndicate.
"I always said to Jamie that when he gets one that he thinks is going to be a good one, I'm happy to buy in. And it's worked out very well."
A halfback, Price played 10 games for the Tigers in the 1995 ARL competition before going to the Rosellas. He played more than 220 games for Wests and was named in the club's team of the century.
