UPDATE
The Offer is out of the Melbourne Cup
EARLIER
The western suburbs connections of highly-fancied Melbourne Cup runner The Offer are counting down the days to the race that stops a nation.
Jan Stephens, a part-owner from Yarraville, is overcome with nervous excitement the closer she gets to having a runner in the famous 3200-metre race at Flemington on that first Tuesday in November.
Barring any last-minute mishaps, Stephens and her family will see their “dream come true” of having a runner in the barriers that were once graced by the likes of the legendary Phar Lap and modern day superstar Makybe Diva.
“It’s very exciting,” Stephens told Star Weekly.
“People don’t realise how hard it is to get a horse to run in the Melbourne Cup and it’s an achievement within itself.
“To have a horse running in the Melbourne Cup has always been the dream.”
The Stephens family is best known in the west for their real estate agent Jas Stephens.
They also have a love of sport, particularly following the Western Bulldogs in the AFL and getting a thrill out of racing horses.
They have owned many horses over the past 20 years, but not all as well known as The Offer, who was the early bookies favourites for this year’s Melbourne Cup before easing out.
The Offer, a five-year-old gelding out of Montjeu and Valdara, was brought to Australia by Robbie Waterhouse with a view to challenging for the Melbourne Cup.
An endurance runner, The Offer is perfectly suited to the two miles, and has been trained to perfection by Gai Waterhouse, who took out the Cup with Fiorente less than 12 months ago.
Stephens has enjoyed a long owner-trainer association with Waterhouse and feels the horse is in no more capable hands.
“She is a marvel of a woman,” Stephen said.
“She rings us, keeps us in the loop, her communication skills are fantastic.
“We can’t praise Gai enough for her skills to get the horse up and ready.”
The Offer is lightly raced and it has taken a lot of time and effort to get to this point in his career.
The highlight of his short career was winning the Sydney Cup earlier this year with jockey Tommy Berry aboard.
It was an emotional win for Berry, who returned home from Hong Kong to take on the ride, while his identical twin brother Nathan was battling what was then a mystery illness and later revealed to be Norse Syndrome.
Nathan passed away a short time later.
Stephens had the honour of leading the horse back to the mounting yard after that emotional win, an unforgettable day for her, but one with a touch of sadness.
“It was a very emotional win for Tommy and all of the owners,” Stephens said.
The Offer is fifth favourite at the moment with question marks coming over his ability to handle the 56.5kg weight, which Waterhouse described as “quite a bit of pudding”.
The Stephens family will enjoy the day out no matter what and will treat themselves to a marquee at Flemington on Tuesday.
“We think we can handle that weight,” Stephens said.
“What we would like is for Melbourne to get some rain, just to try and make the ground a little bit softer.
“We would also like a good barrier this time because it’s a one-paced horse – it’s got the endurance – so we need a bit of luck there.
“Somebody said the other day, ‘do you hope to win?’, and I said ‘nah, we just dream to win’.
“You can’t say that we will win because it’s like having a ticket in a raffle with the Melbourne Cup.”
