By Andrew McGarry , ABC News If you want to talk to someone who knows about riding the winner of the Melbourne Cup, Kerrin McEvoy is not a bad place to start. His first ride came in 2000, when the then-20-year-old jockey from Streaky Bay in South Australia took on Australia's most famous race on Brew. It did not start off that well.
"It was quite bizarre because I picked up the ride on the Saturday and I was pretty happy to pick up the ride because he (Brew) dropped from 58 kilos down to 49 and he only won on the Saturday to get a spot in the race," McEvoy says. "Anyway, lo and behold, we went to the barrier draw after the final race on Derby Day and he drew 24. And I was a bit disappointed because it's the widest barrier and it's my first Melbourne Cup, but at the same time it just sort of freed it up for me.
"It almost let me just fly by the seat of my pants ...
I'm actually yet to ride one better in a 2-mile (3200-metre) race since that day. "I ended up going across and just took my time and ended up getting one off the rail and then got a beautiful run around and, yeah, the rest was history." As we close in on the 164th running of the Melbourne Cup, it is good to look at how the race has changed - and how it has not - over the years.
The question of how to win the Melbourne Cup has several answers, and the starting point is the horse you need to make it. The horse you need For the first 80 to 90 years of the race, Australian-bred horses dominated. Then, from 1950 to 2000,.