Viewed wins Melbourne Cup

Bart Cummings has won his 12th Melbourne Cup with horse Viewed in a photo finish.

Jockey Blake Shinn held of a late challenge from Bauer to ride the Viewed the five-year-old home in a nail-biting photo finish. Rounding out the top 3, C’est Le Guerre ran third.

Viewed’s win is also the fourth cup win for owner Dato Tan Nin Chang who won the Melbourne Cup twice with Saintly and once with Think Big both of which were also trained by Cummings.

Viewed paid $46.50 for a win.

The Aiden O’Brien-trained trained Alessandro Volta led the race early, but Viewed came into the running on the final turn taking the lead with 300m to go.

Blake Shinn thanked his mum, and trainer Cummings, who he described Bart as a living legend, for helping him win the race. 

“I can’t believe it., it is one of the greatest moments in sport to be able to run the Melbourne Cup winner,” he said.

“And to the horse, Viewed, he put in 110 per cent today. We had a lovely run, he settled well which is what you need to win this race.”

Owner Dato Tan Nim Chan thanked Cummings’ staff, who he has had a long association with, as he collected his fourth Cup trophy.

“I am here not to make long speeches but to say how happy I am that the horse won. For a moment I thought he lost. It is my fourth win….I am now happy not to win anymore,” he said.

Bart Cummings, who has now claimed 250 Group 1 wins since his first Melbourne Cup victory 50 years ago, said he was pleased to see an Australian horse succeed.

“Well, what a great day it’s been,” he said. “I do make a habit of winning this race, someone told me, and I said ‘its a good habit to get in to’.”

Cummings said he thought the photo-finish was a dead heat, and said he felt sorry for the runner-up trainer, England’s Luca Cumani.

More than 100,000 people were at Flemington to watch Viewed run home with punters plunging over $20 million in Cup betting.

But the race that stops a nation stopped train services as well, thousands of racegoers had a frustrating delay at Southern Cross station this morning, when a V-line train held up a platform for 20 minutes waiting for crew to arrive.

From about 10.30am, up to 4,000 passengers on board four other trains had to wait until the missing V-Line crew were found and the train could vacate the platform.