He has one of the most important jobs every Melbourne Cup Carnival – managing arguably the best track in Australia so it is as close to perfect for four big race meetings in a week.
For Liam O’Keeffe, this year he has the added pressure of the Cox Plate too. A massive bonus for Flemington, but a fair bit of extra work for the Flemington track team.
He told Betsy his team has been planning for this for nearly a year with the rail movements locked in.
”It’s come up a treat. We’ve been fortunate enough to get some nice weather the last week, and the team has done a great job,” he said.
”We’ve thought about it a lot. The best way to not only run a good Cox Plate Day, but also minimise the impact of our carnival.
”We’re going to go true position for Cox Plate Day, and also true position for Derby Day. We just feel that if we started with the rail out for Cox Plate Day and did get a wet day, which it may look like, we’d start to create lanes for Derby Day and Cup Day, which is not something we want.
So we’ll kick off in true position and then repair the track as quickly as we can ahead of Derby Day.”
The rail will then move to the 3m position for Cup Day, 6m for Oaks Day and 9m for Champions Day.
The club while keen to host one of the world’s great races in the Cox Plate, were cognisant that the track could suffer if the rain arrived.
And the weather god’s could play mean this week – despite a week of glorious weather in Melbourne – up to 20mm of rain could fall on Saturday afternoon.
”It’s warm all week, so regardless if it’s going to rain Saturday, we’ll water up until Thursday anyway, and then Friday, we’ll assess when the rainfall is going to fall and how much and all those sort of things,” O’Keeffe said.
”I spoke to the bureau [on Tuesday morning] and they’ve said that they’ll have more of a clear idea Wednesday, Thursday. So hopefully the rainfall starts after racing and we can get away on a nice deck.”
The club, Moonee Valley and Racing Victoria have also ensured the programme on Saturday is designed to minimise wear on the track.
The meeting will host 9 races instead of the customary 10 while four races will be run down the straight.
”We just wanted to make sure that if we were to host the Cox Plate, it was going to impact our four days as minimally as possible. I think it might be four down the straight, five around the bend, and then that’ll just enable us to make sure the circle course is not too chopped up for Derby Day, and we can repair that and have it in good order for Saturday week,” O’Keeffe said.
O’Keeffe did say that if a signficant amount of rain does fall on Saturday, moving the rail for Derby Day is an option.
”We will go true [position], unless there was some massive deluge and we had to make another call. That’s certainly the plan. If there was any sort of pattern, or rather, horses ease off the inside rather than diving back to the inside, looking for lanes,” he said, adding the surface bounced back from a wet Turnbull Stakes Day.
”That wet Turnbull State Day, that just the way it pulled up out of that, it was the worst possible day for us with the weather, and it bounced out of that as good as it could.
Despite the extra work and the possibility his envied surface might cop an extra hit before the Cup Carnival, O’Keeffe said he was excited to prepare a surface for the Cox Plate – even if it meant he can’t relax for the race like he usually does.
”We last year knew that we’re going to get the Cox Plate, so I did a couple of things last year just in preparation for this year,” he said.
”Just to make sure that our maintenance was going to get the track where we needed it to be. So that worked well, and we’ll implement those starting from Saturday night and early Sunday morning to make sure we can get the recovery into the track nice and early.
”Obviously, that’ll be dictated by if there is rainfall around Saturday night or Sunday, we’ll have to change that around. But hopefully, we can get the lighter side of the rain and the damage isn’t too bad.
”It’s actually exciting [to host the race]. I attend the Cox Plate socially every year, bar COVID, and I’ve probably been to the last twenty except for COVID. I love it. It’s a great race, and it’d be great to look back and talk about that we did have a Cox Plate here.
”I know the teams are all very excited, and for our department, it’s just business as normal. The rest of the departments are probably a little bit more hands off Saturday, so they might be able to enjoy it a bit more.
”I’m looking forward to it and hopefully it’s a great race.
