🔒 🔒 Zakouma gives Begg a long-awaited place on racing’s biggest stage

Having endured Melbourne Cup heartbreak before, Grahame Begg knows better than most not to get too far ahead of himself, even as Zakouma closes in on becoming his first runner in the race that stops a nation.

Fuelled by his memories of the race growing up and the expectation of his stable staff, Begg’s anticipation at finally reaching racing’s biggest stage after all this time is palpable.

Having waited so long – he is older now than his famous father Neville was when he had his final Melbourne Cup runner in 1989 – he is determined to soak in the moment.

The Cup has been an absence in a career that otherwise lacked little. Neville Begg had three Cup runners in the 1980s before handing over the Randwick stable to his son when he left to train in Hong Kong in 1990.

Noble Heights finished 17th in 1983, Born To Be Queen 10th in 1986 and Palace Of Revolt 18th in 1989.

Grahame, then 29, won the Doomben Cup with Eye Of The Sky in his first year in charge.

By the time he closed the Randwick stable in late 2014, he had trained 14 Group 1 winners, but none of them found their way to Flemington on the first Tuesday in November.  

Since moving to Victoria in 2016, initially with six horses, Begg has continued to taste elite success through Written By, Magic Time and most recently Splash Back in the Tatts Tiara in June.

Those horses have all been sprinters, but he has always had a desire to prepare stayers for Melbourne feature races. Nonconformist ran second in the 2021 Caulfield Cup, but never got his chance at Flemington.

The pull of the Melbourne Cup goes back to his childhood.

“When I was very young, I used to get the racetrack photographs: Light Fingers, Rain Lover, all those sorts of things,” Begg said.

“(The 1973 Cup winner) Gala Supreme stayed at our stables once, when he came up for the Sydney Cup.

“I also have fond memories of George Hanlon. I knew him quite well and followed him. He was a bit of a maverick, so to speak, did things a bit outside the square, a bit differently.”

Four years ago, he was set to realise that dream, with Lunar Flare set to take her place in the field, and afforded a good chance at $21, only to be scratched by stewards hours before the Cup.

“Lunar Flare got scratched on the morning of the race with a bruised heel. You know what, I copped it on the chin,” he said.

“It was a very bitter pill to swallow, not only for myself, but for the staff and the ownership group. But they came in, it was a wet day, and they all celebrated in the car park. To their credit, we moved on anyway.”

The following year, Lunar Flare qualified for the Cup with her win in the 2023 Andrew Ramsden, but in her final led-up run in the Moonee Valley Cup suffered a career-ending injury.

It is the sort of setback which could deter a less determined man, but Begg was desperate to get his chance on Australian racing’s biggest stage.

When Zakouma arrived at his stables less than two years ago as a five-start maiden, Begg didn’t register he might be the horse to get him back to the Flemington feature.

Previously with Pat Carey, he had shown promise, but not a lot of speed. But his breeder and owner Trevor Delroy has a penchant for stayers and a knack for getting them on the big stage.

His Wyadup Valley Farms colours have previously been represented in the Melbourne Cup by Ethiopia (7^th in 2013 and 24^th in 2012) and Zabeelionaire (22^nd in 2012).

Zabeelionaire is a brother to Zakouma’s dam Dar Es Salaam.

Delroy had a plan that Crowded House, a stayer he had brought over from Europe, would go well with mares by Zabeel.

Begg may have seen what Delroy was trying to achieve but took the horse, then a four-year-old, at face value.

“I probably didn’t show the horse enough respect when I first got him to train, not knowing what I had, to be truthful, because he hadn’t even won a maiden,” he said.

“His first start in a race for me was a 1700-metre maiden at Geelong, so I just thought, ‘Oh, it’s a run-of-the-mill midweek-class horse’.

“But after his first preparation, he came back for his second preparation with us as a completely different horse. Then he put three wins together, and I said, ‘Oh, OK, we’re going forward here with this horse’.”

Begg has used the Andrew Ramsden before as short-cut to the Melbourne Cup, albeit without getting the horse to the big race, and the plan came together earlier this year when the then five-year-old delivered a career-best performance in the Cup qualifier in May.    

“So, we knew we were going to get into the race on a light weight. It was all about tailoring his preparation coming to the first Tuesday in November,” he said.

The exemption did not fix Zakouma’s rating and actually provided Begg with some challenges mapping his preparation.

“He scraped into the Heatherlie and the Naturalism. He couldn’t get in the Caulfield Cup, so he went to the Herbert Power the week before,” Begg said.

He was sixth, sixth and fifth in those races. He was then last in the Crystal Mile, a run Begg took in place of a jump-out because rain was forecast.

“Visually it didn’t look great, but his sectionals were still very good on the day. He ran his last half-mile in 46.5 (seconds). I reckon it’s pretty damn good going into a Melbourne Cup, particularly having a preparation geared around going to two miles.”

With rain possible from Monday into Tuesday, he expects conditions to be key to the prospects of Zakouma and William Pike causing a Cup upset.

“He doesn’t mind getting his toe in the ground. But you know what? I’m really happy with the horse going into the race,” he said.

The victories of Australian-bred Half Yours and Knight’s Choice over the past two years gives Begg heart that the race still has a place for an owner-breeder with a plan and a trainer with a lifelong Cup dream.

“You don’t have to be in the top line of betting to think you’re in some sort of serious chance. All you can do is have the horse fit, roll on the day, and pass all the criteria to get to the race,” Begg said.