How rain and dirt launched an unlikely bid to make Melbourne Cup history

America has launched a bold bid to pinch the Melbourne Cup with a horse that has never won on grass, a legendary jockey who has amassed more than half a billion dollars in prizemoney and an owner who used to be a rocket scientist.

In one of this year’s Cup’s most intriguing storylines, US galloper Parchment Party flew into Melbourne at midnight on Tuesday before being trucked to the Werribee quarantine centre in preparation for the first Tuesday in November.

It is a tale of twists and turns. No American-trained horse has ever run in the Melbourne Cup.

But Parchment Party is no ordinary Melbourne Cup horse. The four-year-old stallion is a dirt-track specialist, not used to running and winning on the lush lawn that will cover the Flemington straight.

He snatched his golden ticket into Australia’s $10 million group 1 event by being in the “right place at the right time”.

The 2816-metre Belmont Gold Cup in New York recently became a qualifying race for the Melbourne Cup and is usually run on grass. But this year’s event was switched to an adjoining dirt track at the last minute because of torrential rain.

Suited to the sloppy conditions, the Bill Mott-trained Parchment Party careered away to win by eight lengths under the hands-and-heels urgings of US Hall of Fame hoop Johnny Velazquez.

Had the event been run on grass, Parchment Party would not have been allowed to start and would not have won his golden ticket. He was only entered on the chance the race was transferred to dirt – a unique “main-track-only” system in the US that is determined by the weather.

The trailblazing American galloper is owned by Jim and Dana Bernhard of Pin Oak Stud in Kentucky, and this is the first time they have travelled a horse overseas.

As a result, the family will be coming to Australia in force.

With them will be their son, Ben, who became vice-president of their racing business after tossing in his job as an aeronautical engineer.

“It’s cool to be a part of history, hopefully we create a path where others follow in the future … hopefully we are not the last,” Ben Bernhard told this masthead from Kentucky.

Bernhard said he felt the pull towards horsepower after his family bought Pin Oak Stud in 2022.

“I was at SpaceX in Los Angeles, and we had horses training out at Santa Anita, and I just really enjoyed going out to watch the horses train, hanging out with [trainer] Richard Mandella and I just sort of really got into it,” he said.

“Eventually, I decided to make the move and see how I could help from a technology perspective.”

But rather than help horses go “like a rocket”, Bernhard is focused on injury prevention.

He said his side company, Stable Analytics, placed “wearable sensors” on horses to track their every movement.

“These are the same sensors that have been around in aerospace forever,” he said. “The best algorithms for analysing this data come from the aerospace industry, so it works out well in that regard.”

Parchment Party has won all eight of his races on dirt tracks, but that should not detract from his chances in the Melbourne Cup, according to Bernhard.

“He’s run on turf before, he hasn’t won on turf yet,” Bernhard said. “But we haven’t really got a turf race at his preferred distance [in the US]. I think the distance will play to his strengths.

“He’s just a very classy horse. It takes a horse of a really good mind to run the way he does ... running in between horses, running against the rail.

“Running through 20-something other horses [in a Cup field] won’t be an issue for him. He’s just a horse with a really good mind.”

Velazquez, 53, is the other key to the Parchment Party puzzle. No American-based jockey has ever ridden in a Melbourne Cup.

Not that Velazquez’s CV is filled with too many holes. The Puerto Rican-born rider has won three Kentucky Derbies, more than 6700 races and amassed more than $US500 million (about $770 million) in prizemoney for connections.

“He’s won on Parchment Party before so he knows him well, and he’s obviously one of the great jockeys, so we are excited to have him on,” Bernhard said.

So does America’s bold bid to win the Melbourne Cup stand a chance?

We asked Nine’s American sport correspondent and racing enthusiast Brad Blanks.

“Johnny Velazquez is one of the great big-race jockeys of all time in the US and has had a fantastic record riding on turf,” Blanks said.

“He’s won at Royal Ascot a few times, which indicates he takes direction on foreign soil. For the owners of Parchment Party you would hope so.

“As for how the horse will go, sadly it won’t go very well.”

Not even with a rocket scientist as a secret weapon?

“He doesn’t need a secret weapon,” Bernhard said. “He’s got this. He doesn’t need me.”

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