To win a Melbourne Cup is a momentous occasion in anyone’s life.
To do it with your son – or dad – is something beyond special.
Tony and Calvin McEvoy got to share that incredible feeling on Tuesday as their star stayer, Half Yours, romped home to win the Melbourne Cup.
Despite a long and successful training career, Tuesday was Tony’s first Melbourne Cup.
“To have Cal with the passion that he’s got to want to do what I do, and it’s made my life a hell of a lot easier, and it’s just very, very joyous,” he said.
“And what this horse has done for us is he’s going to take us to another level, and we’re certainly looking forward to it, and we’re up for it.”
The father and son duo smiled at each other throughout the celebrations on Tuesday. They occasionally finished each other’s sentences and paid respect to their own contributions to their success.
Tony said that as a shower passed through Flemington before the Cup, it reminded Calvin of when his Dad won the Cox Plate with Fields of Omagh.
“We were down saddling up the horse and that shower came through and Calv reminded me that when I won the Cox Plate it was raining, so it was a nice shower to come through,” Tony said with a smile.
“We’ve had a faultless preparation, which you need to win any race, and this is an incredible horse that he’s allowed us to do what we’ve done.”
“Most horses that are so deep into their preparation, normally their feet sort of are the first things that give up on them because of the demand we put on them and this horse is so sound and so good and we’ve got such a great team of people around us, the farriers, the vets and my staff, our staff.”
“It’s a big team effort to get him to this level and to how he’s been so consistent all the way through. It’s incredible.”
The now infamous tale of how Half Yours came into their stable is worth re-telling.
The horse was with Ciaron Maher but was later sold following the death of Col McKenna, a respected racing and breeding figure.
Calvin was given a budget of $150,000 but eventually got his horse for $305,000 – an astute buy. Calvin said he messaged David Eustace [who will be a groomsmen for Calvin later this year] before he bought Half Yours. Eustace had trained the horse when he worked for Ciaron Maher.
The response was hardly inspiring.
“Dave Eustace was in Hong Kong at the time. I messaged Dave and I messaged him five horses in that sale and… Dave’s one of my best mates and he just said Half Yours is a nice horse. I didn’t ask any further questions, he didn’t tell me he was a star or anything like that.”
The rest is history.
This nice horse was won the Caulfield Cup and Melbourne Cup double and could now be set for another Flemington event in 2026 – the Cox Plate.
“Well I think he showed in the Turnbull that he is a weight for age horse of the future,” Tony said.
“His run in the Turnbull to finish next to the Cox Plate winner Via Sistina. It was really something special.”
“And he’s a big track horse and the Cox Plate’s going to be run at Flemington next year so I think we’ll look at the weight for age races for him in the future and see where he sits.”
Tony says Tuesday’s Cup win will hopefully open some doors for his stable.
“I think I’ve been perceived as a speed two-year-old fillies trainer and Calv’s been associated with that because he’s come on board,” he said.
“So I’m hoping this Caulfield Cup and this Melbourne Cup will change people’s mindset on that and maybe we can get involved in some of these European stayers now.”
“I love training stayers, I’ve trained a Grand National steeple winner and we get a great joy out of training stayers.”
“Speed is speed and you just put them out there and away they go, and these take a little bit more work and a little bit more finessing and I think this horse has shown everyone.”
So how do a father and son celebrate winning a Melbourne Cup? “Well, we’re probably, McEvoys been known to have a few drinks over the time,” Tony laughed, before Calvin interrupted.
“I’ll answer this. When Dad started McEvoy Mitchell Racing, and in whatever year it was, Hey Doc won the Australian Guineas,” Calvin said.
“Before that, we’d made a bit of a pact between him and I, and I wasn’t on the license at that point, that when he won his first Group 1 this time round, we’d have a cigar and a nice bottle of red, and we did that when Hey Doc won the Australian Guineas.”
“He flew back to the whole team of staff … and we had a great night, and we shared that cigar.”
“We haven’t had a chance to do it since the Caulfield Cup, so we’ll be doing that tonight.”
