Paul Richards is no stranger to riding winners at the home of the Melbourne Cup, but he will be one of the proudest people on course if the winner at Wingatui today is a horse he trained.
Richards (53) rode more than 1000 winners during his 25-year career as a jockey, including steering Ain't No Doubt to a win at Flemington in Melbourne in September 1998.
He retired before the first Melbourne Cup day meeting at Wingatui in 2004 but will be dressed to the nines today when he lines up seven horses across five races, including three - Amarok, Kings Road and Tudor Lily - in the 1600m maiden race.
The perfect result, Richards said, chuckling, would be a triple dead-heat for first between his three runners, but said they were all good chances.
Richards loved the chance to run his horses in front of an 8000-strong crowd.
''The atmosphere on the day is good - there's a good crowd, and it's an event,'' he said.
''It's firmly etched on the Dunedin calendar now, isn't it?''
Some of his gallopers are old hands at racing in front of a raucous crowd at Wingatui.
Hernandez, who is in race eight today, won on Melbourne Cup day in 2011, and Anzac Star, who takes on one of New Zealand's leading racehorses, Final Touch, in the feature race of the day, was a winner at the 2010 meeting.
He hoped his younger horses would respond well to the crowds.
''It's a bit of a learning curve for some of them.
''For some of the more inexperienced ones, it gets their heart rate going a little bit.
''But if they want to go to the top, they have to get used to the crowds.''
