100 years since ... Backwood's 1924 Melbourne Cup

But Vintage Crop was not the first northern raider to arrive with Cup glory as the goal. Earlier quarantine protocols meant that imported horses with the Cup in mind needed a long preparation, with a local trainer. In this way, Colin Hayes had prepared the 1980 and 1986 winners, Beldale Ball and At Talaq, in South Australia.

Even they were not the first. One hundred years ago the Irish bred Backwood, with good form on English racecourses, won the Melbourne Cup—after travelling to Australia by sea and spending eighteen months acclimatising.

Back in the 1890s and early 1900s a fashion had emerged to send successful Australian thoroughbreds to race in England or stand at stud. These included Melbourne Cup winners Newhaven, The Grafter and The Victory. Now the plan was reversed.

The Australian-born stock-broking partners who raced The Victory, Lionel Robinson and William Clark, lived and worked chiefly in England. In Australia they could race horses as joint owners. In England, sole ownership was the Jockey Club rule. Their horses in England raced under W. Clark’s name. And it was Clark who paid the goodly sum of 2500 guineas for Backwood at auction in late 1922. Backwood had already won the highly ranked Ascot Derby. Most recently he had finished a close second in the prestigious 1¾ mile Ebor Handicap at York.

Clark, with Robinson, had used this strategy before, of buying tried horses for Australia. Back in 1913 they purchased St Spasa, a two year-old winner at Newmarket, son of a Derby winner, and shipped him to Australia. He won the 1914 Metropolitan at Randwick and took the Adelaide Cup in May 1916 before finishing third in the Melbourne Cup.

Of course the partners were not the first to import thoroughbreds, and to race them here if circumstances permitted. Technically, Sol Green’s Comedy King in 1910 was the first import from Britain to win the Cup, but he came with his dam as a foal. His Cup success started a trend. When first entrie  were taken for the 1912 Cup, no less than nineteen aspirants were imports. One of them, Hallowmas, finished second to New South Wales horse, Piastre.

Constraints on racing in England during the First World War saw an influx of well-performed horses shipped to Australia where racing continued with fewer impediments. Australian horsemen Frank Bullock and Dick Wootton, with outstanding British careers, were at the forefront of selecting and exporting these horses. Shepherd King won the 1916 Caulfield Cup before his second in the Melbourne Cup to New Zealander, Sasanof. Five of the seven Caulfield Cup winners from 1915 to 1921 were British imports. Clark and Robinson owned two of them, King Offa and Lucknow.

Lionel Robinson died in early 1922. His younger brother, William S. Robinson, undertook to take a share in Backwood, but on the very evening of the purchase—or so he recorded in his memoir—over a convivial business dinner in London, he offloaded his portion to his associates William L. Baillieu (visiting from Australia), seated on his left hand, and shipowner Allan

Hughes, on his right. The specific goal, he told them, was the Melbourne Cup. The Baillieu, Clark and Robinson families were linked through marriage, but not Allan Hughes. He never figured in the ownership of any other of their thoroughbreds, but when he heard news of the Melbourne Cup victory, he joked that the purchase validated his judgement of horseflesh.

Backwood on arrival was described as belonging to Clark and ‘the Messrs Baillieu’. It was W.L.’s brother, Edward Lloyd ‘Prince’ Baillieu, along with trainer Bradfield, who guided the horse’s progress. He was well placed to do so, a committeeman and treasurer of the Victoria Racing Club and a man who had raced many good horses. Backwood won the Cup in the ownership of W. Clark, E.L. Baillieu and A. Hughes.

‘Prince’ Baillieu, alone of the owners, was at Flemington to see the win. In the VRC Committee Room today hangs a framed photograph of Baillieu joyfully receiving the gold Cup trophy from his old friend, VRC Chairman, LKS Mackinnon. Looking on with satisfaction is the grey-bearded 85-year-old VRC Secretary, Henry Byron Moore. They shelter from the downpour that has just hit Flemington (you can see their wet umbrellas) outside the Members’ Grandstand, in use that year for the very first time. Overseas raiders—but a home town celebration.

Hoofnote: Backwood remained in Australia but fell in the 1925 Sydney Cup, and was retired to Widden Stud until his death in 1934. The best of his offspring was the sprinter, Parkwood, who brilliantly won the 1931 VRC Newmarket Handicap at Flemington.