Grand Larceny rounded off the Melbourne Cup Carnival in a positive fashion for the training partnership of Michael, John and Wayne Hawkes, claiming his fifth career win in decisive fashion.
Grand Larceny was ridden to victory by Ben Melham, husband of Melbourne Cup winning rider Jamie, adding a nice finishing touch to what has been a very special week for the Melham family.
Earlier in the day, Jamie Melham had ridden back-to-back winners, given the Melham’s three wins on the days race card.
“It took me ‘till the last race on the last day of the carnival, but it has been a great week. Great Carnival!
“It was a tremendous effort because he had to lug a big weight (61kg). I thought the leader would actually take me further, but he sort of stopped, and I just had to keep him rolling with his big weight.
“It was pretty hard going through that ground, so it was a tremendous performance from the horse.”
“Well, it’s been a long quiet week.” said Wayne Hawkes. “He was the only real chance we had this week and he got the job done.”
Grand Larceny was third-up here and his three runs followed the perfect countdown … third over 955m when resuming, second over 1100m second-up … and now the win, again over 1100m.
It’s all about moving in the right direction.
