A first for Grahame Begg with Cup contender Lunar Flare

Cover image courtesy of Bronwen Healy

It was something of a surprise last weekend when the 7-year-old Lunar Flare (Fiorente {Ire}) confirmed her passage into this year’s Melbourne Cup, and not because she wasn’t worthy of a spot.

In fact, it was because she would be the very first Cup contender for her trainer Grahame Begg which, after a long and decorated career such as he’s had, was quite surprising.

“It had just never come about,” Begg said, speaking to TDN AusNZ. “I’d never really had one that was good enough to warrant even consideration, and it’s still a race where you’ve got to have the right type of horse. And, if I’m perfectly honest, in this day and age people aren’t really prepared to be patient.”

The patience game is a big part of every Melbourne Cup. Lunar Flare is seven years old and she’s been in work since 2018. She’s won eight races from 32 starts and, while a winner of close to $1.5 million, she’s been a work in continual progress for four seasons.

“This mare is only just fully maturing,” Begg said. “She’s by Fiorente from an Encosta De Lago mare and she’s only just doing now what she should be doing.”

Lunar Flare first raced for Begg in May 2020. She arrived to his yard as a restricted-grade filly with seven starts behind her at Lindsay Park, the best of which was a maiden win at Moonee Valley in February 2019.

“She was getting beaten at places like Benalla, and she came with a lot of issues,” Begg said. “She had a lot of attitude and she was difficult to break in because she wasn’t straightforward. She showed talent, no doubt about that, but she was always racing up on the lead.

“When we got her, we had to desensitise her a bit. We had to teach her to relax and switch herself off, and also to conserve energy. Like I said, she had talent but her mind wasn’t ready to be a racehorse that early under pressure.”

Begg says that Lunar Flare had to go back to be race educated twice in her early days, that she was just one of those horses. Whatever it was she was being asked, she wasn’t ready.

“Now, she’s just beautiful,” the trainer said. “She’s a little bit keen on the bit in her races, but she’s wonderful to have around. She loves her work and, when you watch her, she just bounces over the ground. She’s like steel in that she copes with everything. She’s the perfect racehorse.”

The spring assault

Lunar Flare has now won seven races for Begg, including the G3 The Bart Cummings last weekend at Flemington.

This victory cemented her place into this year’s Melbourne Cup, it being ballot-exempt, but Lunar Flare didn’t actually need to win it because, after winning the G2 Moonee Valley Gold Cup last spring, she was 21st on the ballot order anyway.

“Winning the Moonee Valley Gold Cup last year was a turning point for us,” Begg said. “The two years before that she was running through her restricted grades, and she won the Listed Ansett Classic down at Mornington. After that, we thought we’d have a crack at one of these other Cup races.

“Our aim with her was to win a city race, then win a Listed race if we could, and then we thought she’d be a Country Cups horse. When she won the Moonee Valley Cup, it helped her pass a lot of ballot conditions for a Melbourne Cup, so we decided after her last prep that we’d give her a good spell and then bring her back with one run in July before bringing her up gently for the spring assault.”

So far, the spring assault has been runs in the Listed Heatherlie H. behind Emissary (GB) (Kingman {GB}) and the G3 Naturalism S. behind Smokin’ Romans (NZ) (Ghibellines). After that, it was Saturday’s win in The Bart Cummings.

“We’ve really thought it all out this year,” Begg said. “We had her in the Caulfield Cup but her record at Caulfield isn’t that great. She doesn’t like the way they race there, going slow and then quickening from the turn. She usually gets back in her races so I decided not to pay up for the Caulfield Cup and instead just concentrate solely on the Melbourne Cup.”

With the blessing of the mare’s ownership, Lunar Flare will head to the Moonee Valley Gold Cup on October 22. It will be her final race before the big one on Tuesday, November 1, and, for her trainer, the pressure cooker is just kicking off.

“It will be a good buzz and we’ll enjoy the ride, put it that way,” Begg said. “We’ve got some nice horses running through the spring carnival, including our first Cup runner, so we’ll enjoy the moment while it’s here.”

Stars aligning

For many, it’s hard to believe that neither Begg nor his father, the legendary Neville Begg, have won a Melbourne Cup before. After all, the family name has been a mainstay in Australian racing for 70 years.

For Neville Begg, Cup contention came in the shape of 1951 when he was a foreman for trainer Maurice McCarten. It was the year Delta won the big race, and Begg had been with McCarten's yard from a formative age in the year 1946.

“Dad’s runners as a trainer all finished midfield,” Begg said. “But I’d be telling a lie if we said we didn’t have any that would have come close. November Rain was a horse that my father never had a chance to run in a Melbourne Cup, but she won three Oaks, an AJC St Leger and a Wakeful.

“If they’d embarked on a Cups campaign with her, no doubt she would have been competitive. She was an unbelievable stayer, that mare.”

Memories like these are what might give Grahame Begg an edge with Lunar Flare. His father, who trained from 1967 to 1996, was a deft hand with fillies and mares, training the likes of Emancipation (Bletchingly). A victory in this year’s Melbourne Cup would be a popular one among the sheds.

However, in more ways than one, Lunar Flare’s entry into the field has a degree of providence about it.

Her sire, Fiorente (Ire), is a Melbourne Cup winner, and that double hasn’t been achieved since 1984 when Black Knight won the race, a son of the 1971 winner, Silver Knight (NZ).

“There’s a bit of a sideline to her ownership, too,” Begg said. “Lunar Flare was bred by John Valmorbida, and the colours that she wears belong to his father-in-law. They’re very famous colours, carried by a horse called Taj Rossi, who most people will have heard of.”

Begg said there is a lot synergy floating around this part of the Lunar Flare story.

“Her winning The Bart Cummings was another thing because Bart trained Taj Rossi, so to win that race last Saturday, the ownership was so rapped,” he said. “So when it comes to the Cup, the stars have got to align, haven’t they? We’ve still got a little bit of water to go under the bridge but it’s certainly feeling right at the moment.”