Wednesday, 9 June 2010: The Hunter Valley horse country will celebrate the contribution it has made to the Melbourne Cup with a festival in mid October coinciding with the race's 150th anniversary.
The trophy that is to be presented to the owners of the winner of the 150th Melbourne Cup at Flemington on November 2 will visit the Hunter Valley for the festival.
Archer,winner of the first two Melbourne Cups in 1860 and 1861 was bred at Braidwood in southern NSW but his owner-trainer Etienne de Mestre prepared and owned another three Melbourne Cup winners including Tim Whiffler, one of the earliest Hunter Valley bred winners of the great race.
Tim Whiffler was got at Tocal on the Paterson River in the lower Hunter Valley but was also reared on the same Braidwood property as Archer.
Tocal was one of Australia's leading studs of the time in the ownership of Charles Reynolds and was home to Tim Whiffler's sire New Warrior, a big influence in early Melbourne Cup history.
New Warrior also sired Melbourne Cup winners Warrior (1869) and The Pearl (1871). The latter and also the 1886 winner Arsenal (by Goldsborough, third 1in the 875 Melbourne Cup) were both bred by Reynolds.
In1859 New Warrior was advertised as standing at the Horse and Jockey Inn at Jerrys Plains in the Hunter Valley but moved to Tocal the next year.
The Upper Hunter had to wait until 1903 to be the breeding grounds for its first Melbourne Cup winner, but then had a purple era.
The winners that established the Upper Hunter as the major breeding grounds in Australia includedby Lord Cardigan (1903), Poseidon (1906), Lord Nolan (1908), Prince Foote (1909), Piastre (1912) and Poitrel (1920).
Lord Cardigan, who was runner up to Acrasia in1904 at his second crack at the Cup and died four days later, and Lord Nolan were three-quarter brothers who were raised on Widden Stud for their owner John Mayo of Rutherford near Maitland.
Mayo could easily have had the quinella in the1904 Melbourne Cup. On the night before the race he won Acrasia from owner and Sydney bookmaker Humphrey Oxenham in a card game but resold it to him on race morning for 2000 guineas.
Lord Cardigan was from the Trenton mare Lady Trenton and Lord Nolan out of her daughter Lady Lybia.
One of the leading owners for many years, Mayo also bred and raced Lady Trenton, a Sydney Cup winner who ran in the 1894 Melbourne Cup.
She is an ancestress of 1945 Melbourne Cup Rainbird, her half-brother Peter who was second in 1944 and also of the influential sire Centaine. She also appears in the pedigrees of more recent notable winners Foreplay, Centennial Park, Ballack and Extension Of Time to mention a few.
Lord Cardigan and Lord Nolan were by Positano, an imported son of the immortal St Simon who finished sixth in the1897 Melbourne Cup.
He stood at the Dangar family's Neotsfield Stud near Singleton and also sired 1906 winner Poseidon (bred by the Dangars but sold as a foal to the Moses brothers of Arrowfield at Jerrys Plains), 1912 winner Piastre, Mooltan (second and fourth in the Cup), Didus and Ulva's Isle (Cup third placegetters).
The Dangars, pioneers of the Upper Hunter, in the late1920s bred and raced the champion dual Melbourne Cup winner Peter Pan (1932 and 1934). Put to stud at Neotsfield, Peter Pan died prematurely, but not before siring Cup runner up Peter.
The1912 Melbourne Cup winner Piastre appears to have been the first bred near Scone. He was bred and raced by coal mining magnate William Brown, owner for some years of Segenhoe Stud.
Brown's brother John, known as the Coal King and also as 'Baron' Brown, won the1909 Melbourne Cup with the 3YO Prince Foote. He bred him on his stud at Wills Gully, Singleton.
The Moses brothers bred the 1920 Melbourne Cup winner Poitrel at Arrowfield at Jerry's Plains and also AJC Derby winner Manfred, runner up to Windbag in 1925.
Another stud to play a big role in Melbourne Cup history last century was Kia Ora Stud at Scone. The winners coming off this famous property were Windbag (1925), Delta (1951), Evening Peal (1956) and Baystone (1958).
Another Scone-bred winner was Wakefield Stud's Subzero (1992), while Cup placegetters from the region have included Prince Darius (bred on Holbrook Stud), Rising Fear (Castlereagh Stud), Noble Comment (Jim Koureas), Nothin' Leica Dane (Arrowfield Stud) and Yippyio (Geoff White).
Organisers of the celebrations to coincide with the visit of the Cup trophy to Scone are planning to showcase the long association of the area with a collection of memorabilia, interviews with people who been associated with the breeding or racing of runners and social events.
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