Fiorente and Waterhouse keep Melbourne Cup at home

Gai Waterhouse holds aloft the Melbourne Cup (Getty Images)

If only the ills besetting Australian sport could be cured as easily as the solution racing has devised – simply import the opposition. Fiorente, who won the Melbourne Cup, went one place better than last year's second to fellow expat Green Moon, beating some familiar rivals.

The next four home – Red Cadeaux, Mount Athos, Simenon and Dandino – were all trained in Britain and Ireland, with the second and third confirming previous efforts in defeat in the race. More strikingly, Fiorente ran to his form with Red Cadeaux, first and third in last year's Princess of Wales's Stakes at Newmarket's July meeting, when the son of Monsun was trained by Sir Michael Stoute. After running fourth to the dual Arc runner-up Orfevre in the Prix Foy at Longchamp last autumn, Fiorente joined the champion Australian trainer Gai Waterhouse and finished runner-up in the Melbourne Cup. A winning campaign this autumn culminated in this success.

Waterhouse, the daughter of another champion trainer, Tommy Smith, was gaining her first success in Australia's premier race. "Everyone who is a trainer wants to win the majors and the major staying racing in Australia is the Melbourne Cup, so it ticks that off the bucket list," she said.

The winning rider, Damien Oliver, was gaining his third success in the race. Oliver had been set to partner Green Moon last year before becoming embroiled in a betting scandal which cost him a 10-month suspension. "Nothing is a given in this game but I was determined to work hard when I came back and I've been very fortunate that someone like Gai got behind me," he said

Green Moon started life with Harry Dunlop, whose brother Ed hit the bar once again with the globetrotting Red Cadeaux. "I was so disappointed with his last run in Ireland and I was calling this his 'Zimmer frame' tour, but as soon as he gets on a plane he's a different horse," said Ed, who now has races in Japan and Hong Kong in mind.

Waterhouse once appeared in Doctor Who, in the Tom Baker years, before taking up the family trade. Mick Channon prepared for life in racing via route one as an international striker but has gone further than Michael Owen, whose Brown Panther finished eighth in the Melbourne Cup, in fashioning an even more successful career as a trainer. Channon's fortunes on the Flat have ebbed recently, but his jumps partnership with Henrietta Knight bore fruit with Somersby in the Haldon Gold Cup at Exeter.

Tony McCoy drew a blank at the Devon venue. Two winners from his two mounts at Chepstow on Wednesday would bring up the 4,000 career total.