Winners All Round as Favourite Takes Cup

PUNTERS were out in force – and style – as Melbourne Cup fever hit Ipswich yesterday.

And the result couldn’t have been better for Ipswich race fans as the hot favourite Fiorente,

ridden by three-time winning jockey Damien Oliver, stormed home at Flemington.

Loud cheers erupted around friends Aislinn Dwyer and Jessica McGill inside the Char’d restaurant as the number six horse charged past the post, securing a first Melbourne Cup victory for legendary trainer Gai Waterhouse.

“I had a feeling,” an ecstatic Ms Dwyer said. “My uncle’s mother said number six and I had a weird feeling for Fiorente.

“She had me saying six all day and I thought I’ve got to win.”

Nigel Bates was thrilled with his small win, saying he always backed a Gai Waterhouse horse.

“I went with the favourite, but I’m a huge Gai Waterhouse fan,” he said. The PA Hotel was awash with colour for the fashions on the field event, but it was Sheree Thorton, of Bundamba, who took out the style stakes with her eye-catching lime and black number.

Metro Hotel Ipswich International was the next best thing to being trackside at Flemington, with party-goers enjoying a picnic-themed luncheon and all the action on the big screen.