Will To Win

From our pal down under, Konrad Marshall: The horizon here is a craggy ridge of open cut coal mine, the blue sky above and the Muswellbrook Race Club below. Magpies arc on the breeze this recent Monday morning, warbling at nothing in particular. A whipper-snipper whirs near garden bed of sweet peas. No roses.

This is where Robert Thompson will ride on the first Tuesday in November. He won't saddle up for the Melbourne Cup (as he did in 1986 on Reckless Tradition, finishing seventh to At Talaq). He will ride in the Muswellbrook Cup.

"He's won it four times," grunts a bookmaker. "He's won everything four times."

Thompson describes Muswellbrook on a Monday as having "no atmosphere at all", but he…