Headline stars are expected to deliver their box office credentials and play their roles accordingly.
James McDonald is sometimes rated the best jockey in the world, though some strange moving algorithms or points or however they are determined, have him most often sharing top billing or if not understudy to Ryan Moore.
McDonald plays social media as “a Kiwi flat jockey tripping the world. Where only perfection will do”. Moore is more Daniel Day Lewis, where a career of brilliant performances talks itself, more Charlie Chaplin, the silent one, without the fun.
So modern fans can lay claim to knowing a “J-Mac” as if he’s a brand or some other phenomenon.
There is the shooting arrow salute, the seamless knowingness of him by those who do or think they do or want to, whether they do or not.
He rode the first winner in Cup week on Derby Day and then the last on appropriately named Champions Day (and punters cheered home that horse, Pisanello almost louder than the Cup winner – and it was only a benchmark 80!)
Of course there were nine more winners in-between, to better his own previous standard record of 10 and McDonald reckons he “butchered” another four.
Like George Clooney as Danny Ocean, who started his trilogy with Oceans 11, McDonald can be expected, and probably deliver his own sequels without such fanciful scripts or sidekicks.
And some perspective to all this – he only rode in 31 of the 37 Cup week races. If he didn’t win, he ran nine other top three placings.
There was even a live tally of J-Mac winners updated on his homemade sign by a young fan throughout the week. More than cute.
And remember James let Robbie Dolan be “The Voice” in the Cup, and give our great race a feel-good feel, even when punters weren’t feeling so good.
An Aussie Cup, well of course Dolan is Irish, is dad Robbie Senior (Bobby) from County Kildare, had worked for Dermot Weld, who transformed The Cup into a true international contest, yet Sheila Laxon, born in Wales, from New Zealand, via the Sunshine Coast, with John Symons gave it a rollicking Aussie feel.
Never has a $91 winner after $301 was bet at the Call Of The Card, seemingly been so popular.
McDonald too is ex-pat, a Kiwi by birth but with an international saddle passport. Yet despite having won it and embraced what such means with Verry Elleegant, weights and measurements were against him this year, McDonald riderless in our great race, while connections of Buckaroo may have wondered why so.
Yet at the end of the week, J-Mac’s accountant, probably very much used to such, is working out his entitled five percent of the $7,123,177 for the horses he rode and can be comforted that of the only three of those that didn’t get into the money, there was a near on a $300 riding fee.
Sure, Via Sistina was a $1.6 chance and many would suggest they could have won on it, yet his other 10 winners averaged $5, his best Amelita at $11 with some steer on Oaks Day.
And a little fun fact on the side is that “J-Mac” now sits equal 5th on the Melbourne rider’s premiership with 12 wins, off just 49 rides and some $10.7m in prizemoney.
Blake Shinn leads that with 23 wins off 147 rides but $5.45m in total stakes earned.
McDonald’s dozen is equal to Craig Williams ($5.25m). His 12th winner prior to the McDonald 11 of Cup week of course is the Ladbrokes Cox Plate on Via Sistina and the none too shabby $3.05m prizemoney return.
These are mere statistics and numbers, but clear screen shots of a rare talent.
McDonald is horse racing’s biggest and most accessible human star. Rarely a request for a minute here or there goes to message bank or into the ether.
Yet there is managed time and after the fourth Ron Hutchinson Cup week award on Saturday. McDonald was straight home for the second birthday of daughter Evie Belle with wife Katelyn (nee Mallyon) for other breeding buffs. (a second daughter, Mia was foaled in May.)
He gave the right lines: “It's a privilege, it's an honour to ride here and especially this week.
"Great atmosphere, the crowd makes it so much fun to ride here, and these four days are very, very special.
"I'm still coming to terms with what happened there, but very special week.
"One of the best weeks in racing, and it's great to ride here."
McDonald’s pure, somewhat boyish enthusiasm for competition and racing on such a stage is palpable, not manufactured or in any way structured than of his own drive.
You sense, without asking, that the big stage of the Melbourne Spring sits more comfortably with the challenge and the history, than what Sydney has scripted up with budgets perhaps defying returns, yet he’ll accommodate all there too.
McDonald’s 11 Cup week winners included four Group 1’s, supposedly racing’s grand finals or elite World Cups. Showstoppers if you like.
A Coolmore Stud Stakes (with Switzerland for the sponsor, their partners and trainer Chris Waller), Atishu (for a massive syndicate of Kiwi owners and Waller), Sunshine In Paris (for Sydney’s other Chicken King John Camilleri with Annabelle Neasham and professional and personal partner and new G1 trainer Rob Archibald.)
And all that before Via Sistina doubles up from the Cox Plate into the Champion Stakes, prompting James McDonald to ponder “what she would have wonder the Melbourne Cup by?”
In the end, McDonald was the star of some show, the Victoria Racing Club team led by chairman Neil Wilson and new CEO Kylie Rogers, and their teams should be rightly proud that 285,000, or some 20,000 more than last year, turned up in good weather, for a stunning carnival.
The stories have been well told and shared, the free to air figures on new partner Channel 9 all positive and the Billy Slater transformation from State of Origin coach to horseback interviewer something pleasingly beyond expectations.
No, it isn’t myth that Billy rode trackwork for Gai Waterhouse, but only racing can provide such stories as this.
And James McDonald is continuously writing his own new scripts and thankfully starring in all of them.
So, here’s a little sober, at the VRC’s Autumn Carnival at Flemington in March 1972, Roy Higgins rode a record 12 winners over three days, including five in one day. In 1973, he rode a record eight consecutive metropolitan winners.
That’s “The Professor”, J-Mac, the savant, is not in waiting, he’s waiting for nobody.
Not even “The Goat”, Damien Oliver, whose, record of 129 Group 1 wins will be sooner than later eclipsed by J-Mac. Oliver was 41 when his 100th came up on Fiorente in the 2013 Melbourne Cup.
Oliver, now retired, is left to commentate and admire a unique talent from the other side of the saddle.
McDonald was 32 when Via Sistina cracked his G1 ton in the Cox Plate demolition. (Note the theatrical timing of that too - legendary!)
Jim Cassidy, Hugh Bowman and George Moore, will all soon be in J-Mac’s 100 plus club shade, while every other rider can only hope for some of his crumbs or to learn from a unique talent.
In a world where there is Australian Sparling Wine and French Champagne, there is a b-grade actor and George Clooney with Brad Pitt rolled in for big screen dollars, there is also in racing, Gravox of the jockey kind, and - well James Mcdonald.
But some things are better unsaid or unsought, not for understanding, gravy being of a different kind.
Paul Kelly gave us his family traditional recipe, "add flour, salt, a little red wine and don't forget a dollop of tomato sauce."
Good luck getting a Jamie Oliver version for J-Mac. His saddle rules.
