Of course, the Melbourne Cup is a dream for all Australian horse players, no matter where they peg in the social totem pole, not to mention the annual raft of international interlopers and heavy hitters.
To have a runner, almost no matter the cost or the sense, is something of a lifetime achievement. And then to win it, well?
Obviously rich in its own history but more so as part of the fabric of our national make-up, so much so that you might not remember the year but could say “oh that was when so and so won The Cup” - or the result is remembered more broadly outside its own bubble for those who triumphed and the stories they carried with them to do so.
Take last year’s winner Without A Fight, owned by Sheik Mohammed Obaid al Maktoum part of Dubai’s ruling family, to this year's possibility, The Map, co-trained by Oopy MacGillivray, once of Dunkeld, long time eventer, and now pinching the dream of a Tuesday in November after winning in via the Andrew Ramsden at Flemington Saturday.
This is the same Oopy, once known as Julia Kimpton when briefly with a previous owner-trainer permit in Victoria, and sent out Bondark to run second last and last at Penshurst and Hamilton in April 2000, before going back to her first love, equestrian sports.
She was pretty good, finished top 10 in all the three-day event majors, always the elite level - Gawler, Melbourne, Werribee Park - winning a one day at the internationally regarded Wandin Park in the Yarra Valley.
But she has always been Oopy, and statisticians will face little kickback in suggesting, she’d be the first Oopy to have a Cup runner.
Oopy?
“Apparently I was small and round like a threepence when I was born and my father called me Thrippy,” said MacGillivray.
“My sister, who was 15 months older, couldn’t say Thrippy and it became Oopy and I’ve been Oopy since I was six months old.”
The MacGillivray, comes from a marriage to larger-than-life South Australian hotelier, businessman and entrepreneur Duncan, (say Two Dogs alcoholic lemonade that was selling 33 million cases globally as one of the ventures), but who tragically passed away from a heart attack on a family holiday in Bali in 2014, just 66, but something that triggered a life changing moment in Oopy in more ways than the obvious.
“He was an amazing person and I think he would be incredibly proud, probably a little bit jealous. He taught me a lot about life and to seize the day,” Oopy said.
“It was like a wake-up call, an opportunity to return to the things I loved the most, you only have one life and for me it was my chance to go back and train racehorses.”
And The Map? There was Lot 140, a daughter of Tasmanian based stallion Alpine Eagle at the Adelaide Magic Millions 2020 sale.
“She just kept walking around the corners in front of us, we weren’t looking for her, but it seems she found us,” Oopy said.
So, $35,000 later came The Map for Oppy and co-trainer and new life partner Dan Clarken as they also started their race journey together in a training partnership.
“He (Dan) was training a horse for us called Blue Morpho who was well above average and pretty quickly after that we decided to train together, let’s do it,” she said.
“But to train horses you need to buy yearlings, you have to have a horse and we’ve done ok, always had a decent one but then I’ve always been a competitive person."
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"I just didn’t want to send one out for fun, I want to win races."
They have come with the likes of Blue Morpho (winning a Listed Laelia Stakes), More Reward (a Listed Hill Smith Stakes) and Mileva (a Listed Manihi), Harleymoven was a Port Adelaide Guineas winner before being sold to Hong Kong, then along comes The Map which has and will certainly put them well and truly on the racing map if the ultimate racing dreams comes true.
Oh, that name too?
“Well officially you could say it's like the map as in racing maps that they always talk about.
"Unofficially, you could say something about the map of Tassie,” said Oopy.
Well, the filly was born and bred in Tassie, almost an import right, and you can imply a little more Aussie vernacular if you want another stop on the map.
And now she sits on the second line of Melbourne Cup betting map behind Sydney Cup winner Circle Of Fire ($11), an import, and alongside defending champ Without A Fight (an import at $15) with last year’s beaten favorite Vauban (returning from the UK again) and Middle Earth, a winner at Newbury the same day The Map won the Ramsden, raced by Qatar Racing and bought into by Ciaron Maher's stable.
“Of course it is a dream now, you wake up and can’t quite believe it, but she is the sort of horse who can get there, she just keeps getting better and better, physically and mentally stronger, you just can trust her,” Oopy said.
And that’s what they will do in The Cup.
The Map won’t be bothered by Cup Day atmosphere either, last year she won The Macca’s Run (over 2800m) before Without A Fight took the major, the year before she ran without luck in the Matriarch Stakes on Derby Day “and she wasn’t quite right that first time there” said Oopy.
You sense Oopy might know a little of what she is talking about, and it all comes with limited fuss, but it would be some journey from a Dunkeld childhood on the land with ponies to The Cup.
“I was just a country kid, and we just always rode horses, did lots of stock work, it's what we did, I loved the horses, and it was a natural progression into showjumpers and eventers,” she said.
“I did have my licence in Victoria when I was young, but I just wasn’t ready for it. I got married and went away to South Australia and just rode for pleasure for about 15 years and started a family.” (There are two grown sons Angus and Max – “Max is in Kashmir at the moment, but they enjoy the social side of the racing with the twenty somethings.”)
Two Dogs was an internationally successful ‘alcopop” for Duncan, but his business interests were broad, Kangaroo Island Pure Grain, which was aimed a the island’s GM-free crops, as well as Longview Vineyards Wines at Macclesfield in the Adelaide HIIs.
It was there, Oopy first met up with Jamie Kah, who she hopes may rejoin her and The Map in November. (Kah has won the Queen Elizabeth II Cup, the Macca’s Run and finished second in the Adelaide Cup at her three rides on The Map.)
We had our property at Macclesfield, which was for work and entertainment, had plenty of rooms, it was only recently sold, but Jamie’s father was building a house for her and it wasn’t quite ready so she moved into one of our apartments and stayed with us for about 12 months, there were lots of funny dinners, she’s a great person, incredible at what she does under the pressure for someone so young is put under.”
Not surprisingly Kah has first dibs at The Map ride in November. “Wouldn’t that be something?”
As it is now for Oopy to be training with Clarken.
“Once I decided to give it a go, I just went down there to pick up shit, strap a few horses, riding work again, get a strapper’s licence and then said I may as well get a trainer’s ticket.
“To be honest it is far more than I expected in a good way. We work hard at it, well every trainer does, but we do it all ourselves from breaking them in, I’ve been educating hoses all my life so that has come in handy,” she said.
But the addition of an apprentice Tala Hutchinson to the small Murray Bridge stable has allowed Oopy to step back a little from the track gallops, but never the passion for her horses and the dreams ahead.
Sadly, they will be without her first husband Duncan, and her father Charles Kimpton, who only recently passed away in the last fortnight, aged 80.
But with Clarken, who may have already had moments in the Group I racing sun through the Blue Diamond winner Miracles Of Life, though it will be nothing like the months ahead, as they map out The Map’s Cup path.
If not the feelgood story so far out from that Tuesday in November, they certainly will be as it comes nearer and more real. Well at the very least she will have those who map in Tasmania with them (not to mention loyal South Australian racing fans).
And no doubt the story will drag plenty with them. And think of the owners on this journey with Oopy and Dan and The Map (of Tassie) towards Australia's most famous race.
They are already living their own very Australian racing dream.
Hope they can all get in and enjoy it like this on Cup Day. Oops!
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