Something else: Lemaire salutes Cup crowd

CHRISTOPHE LEMAIRE could not quite find the word for it on Tuesday after his victory by a nose on Dunaden in the Melbourne Cup, but yesterday it came to him. Magical.

Lemaire, 28, said yesterday that he wasn't quite sure what to make of the crowd reaction when, after a three-minute delay because of the millimetre-margin over Red Cadeaux, his horse's number went into the frame first. He knew he was on the second favourite, but he couldn't work out why everyone seemed to be cheering. Surely, not all 105,000 or so at Flemington had backed Dunaden.

''The crowd, it was like everyone else had won the race,'' he said yesterday. ''They all share it with you. I was unknown 24 hours before but now I am like the brother of everyone.''

Lemaire flew out of Melbourne yesterday morning bound for the US, where more riches await over the Breeders' Cup weekend at Churchill Downs.

No matter the result, he is certain the atmosphere in the US home of horse racing in Kentucky will be far from what he experienced in Melbourne on Tuesday.

Was it the big crowd? ''I think it was more than that,'' he said. ''In Japan, I am used to riding in front of the big crowds … There was something else. Something magical. Maybe, because for me, Australia is very far from my country and here they talk about the legend of the Melbourne Cup, so maybe I can feel that I am a part of the legend now. This is something special. Nowhere else do I feel this emotion.''

Dunaden's trainer, Mikel Delzangles, also experienced a strange sensation. He, too, could not work out why so many were so jubilant after a French horse, French trainer and French jockey came to Melbourne and snared the country's biggest race.

''There was a real feeling,'' he said. ''There is nothing like yesterday in the world of racing.''

A modest Lemaire said he had it easy compared to the locals who had spent weeks under the spring carnival microscope. ''I wasn't even riding in the race 24 hours before, so I didn't feel any pressure, really.''

He was not disconcerted by the controversy surrounding his 11th-hour booking for Dunaden following Craig Williams's failed appeal against a careless riding charge, or by suggestions that Dunaden's chances had plummeted because his new rider was a Frenchman who had never seen Flemington.

''It's normal,'' Lemaire said of the concern of Dunaden's backers. ''The punters, they want to have the information on the horse and the jockey, so knowing that it was a French jockey in his first experience in Australia on the second favourite, it was a point.

''Craig, he's a superstar here, he's a great jockey, so I am not surprised that everyone is wondering if I would be able to ride the horse properly. But I know the horse. I knew it wasn't a tricky track, so I was very confident. I think I did the job not too bad.''