More than forty years after celebrating his first black-type win in the Christmas Cup, Paul Cave will be back at Randwick looking to capture the race for the seventh time with Mcgeehan.
Cave scored his breakthrough victory with Prince Weyand in 1981 but it was during the late 1990s and early 2000s that he made the race his own, earning the moniker of the ‘Çhristmas Cup King’.
Cave won the Listed staying feature with Lahar (1998), Pasta Express (1999), Airlie Bird (2002), Sadarar (03) and most recently Taken At The Flood in 2006.
It is understandably a race that holds fond memories, although his affinity with it is more by circumstance than design.
“It has been a good race for me, but it was never planned,” Cave said.
“I had a lot of staying-type horses that I found weren’t good enough to go down to Melbourne and that was always a suitable race.
“Hopefully we can do it again. The horse is very well, my rider said on (Wednesday morning) that he has never felt better and she looks after him all the time.”
These days Cave trains a small team in partnership with his wife Martha, the pair splitting their time between Warwick Farm and their property at Mulgoa on the outskirts of Sydney, which provides a natural environment to condition and revitalise their horses.
The Irish-born 73-year-old remains an active part of the team and is “still riding out every morning with the pre-trainers up at the farm”.
McGeehan showed early staying promise before being diagnosed with kissing spine just over 12 months ago, the same affliction that affected Alligator Blood.
He underwent successful surgery and has been sound and pain-free since and Cave admits there is a unique satisfaction in getting the gelding to a Listed Christmas Cup (2400m), given he and a handful of loyal stable clients bred the horse from one of their handful of broodmares.
“They’re all mares I’ve raced or had something to do with,” Cave said.
“We’re breeding them and raring them, it’s hatch to dispatch.
“I enjoy it. I’ve bought a lot of yearlings over the years and it’s great being able to purchase yearlings but the clients I have now, they said, ‘why don’t we just keep the mares that are good and go to pretty good stallions’, and that’s what we’ve done.”
McGeehan ($23) relished his first attempt at 2400m last start with a comfortable midweek win at Warwick Farm when he was ridden by Jason Collett, who sticks with him on Saturday.
Cave is optimistic the horse can run a cheeky race, maybe even break his 16-year Christmas Cup drought, although he won’t be on course if it happens.
In a bit of Irish superstition, he will leave race day duties to Martha.
“She won with him and saddled him up last start so I said to her, you can make the speech,” he quipped.
