That race, and that girl.

Yes, I watched it. We were up in the hills on Tuesday at a cousin's house for a picnic for the children's grandmother, and after lunch at Belgrave Lake - as pretty a place as you could hope to have a Cup Day lunch - back to the house. The children had drawn horses cut from the morning paper's form guide, and one had Big Orange who led from the start to the 700, and they screamed at the television. Then the field bunched up into a sea of horses, and 300 out a green and purple flash came out of the scrum. We didn't know until the close-up on Michelle Payne's face. Goosebumps. I had earlier read her interview in which she said she had a good feeling about the race. Not the brash kind of good feeling where you're just talking up your chances; but something else. Might have been her mother, or her sister. She lost the former at six months; the latter a few years ago. Youngest of ten, and lost her mother at six months.

We didn't know the result until the vision showed the close-up, because the call was terrible, inaudible. Might not have been Greg Miles' fault but you couldn't hear a thing above the noise. Later, I heard Brian Martin's call replayed on radio. It was faultless, like Bert Bryant or Bill Collins on 3UZ or 3DB way back.