(Melbourne, AUS) - Australian-trained Green Moon outbattled a strong foreign contingent of stayers to win the Aus$6 million ($6.2 million) Melbourne Cup at Flemington on Tuesday.
Ridden by Brett Prebble and trained by Robert Hickmott, Green Moon finished ahead of Fiorente, with Jakkalberry third in the 3,200-metre (two-mile) race, the biggest event on the Australian racing calendar.
Prebble flew in from Hong Kong to take the Cup mount and guided his horse to a length victory over another Australian-trained stayer, Fiorente, with a further one-and-a-quarter lengths to the Marco Botti-trained Jakkalberry.
"I was very confident they weren't going to pick him up -- he ran all the way through to the wire," Prebble said.
It was one the strongest international fields to contest the Melbourne Cup in its 152nd year with Prince Charles and his wife Camilla among the huge crowd.
Highly fancied previous winners Americain and Dunaden, trained in France, were never in the race and finished well back.
