This time last year there were plenty of voices railing loudly against Ryan Moore. It was a common theme. Ever since international jockeys have come here for the spring carnival, there have strong, mainly ignorant voices, railing against their talent and worth.
In Moore's case, he had ridden in the previous two Melbourne Cups aboard the well-fancied Mount Athos and Dandino and finished fifth on both occasions, with plenty of riders in the stand making it clear they weren't impressed.
In fact, not far from the media room, a handful of the more disgruntled people nicknamed him "No F------ Moore" following those performances. No doubt their pockets were doing the talking, but it is indicative of the light in which he was held in certain sections of the racing community in Australia as he prepared to ride Adelaide in the Cox Plate last weekend.
No matter that he has won classic races in England, Ireland and France. He has also scored at the highest level in the US, including at the Breeders Cup carnival, as well as taking out perhaps the world's best race, the Prix de l'Arc de Triomphe aboard Workforce in 2010.
Moore has also won top grade races in Canada, Dubai, Japan, Italy, Germany and Hong Kong. Wherever he goes in the world he is regarded as the "go to" man. Apart from Australia.
Well, that was the case until last Saturday, when the worm turned after his extraordinary victory aboard Adelaide. He rated his mount perfectly, circled the field and then got him in front at the only place he needed to be in the lead – the winning post.
Moore's ride was masterful and he is undoubtedly one of the world's best jockeys. Others include, in Hong Kong, Douglas Whyte, Australian Zac Purton and Brazilian Joao Moreira; in Europe, Moore and Christophe Soumillon. American punters might vote for the likes of John Velazquez or Javier Castellano.
Moore went from zero to hero with one ride in the eyes of many Australians. But the wider point is that he shouldn't never have been regarded as a zero here in the first place, especially by some who should know better.
At Melbourne's Call of the Card a few years ago, in front of an audience that included several international racing identities, one prominent figure in the industry kept referring to Gerard Mosse as Gerard Moose, implying that he was a dud. Never mind that he won the Melbourne Cup on Americain and is widely regarded as an international star. It was a cringe.
Still, it's hardly surprising. Ever since Michael Kinane piloted Vintage Crop to victory for Dermot Weld in the 1993 Melbourne Cup and then finished seventh and third in successive seasons when plotting a wider course than that favoured by the locals, European jockeys have tended to cop a bagging when they arrive Down Under.
Is it small mindedness? ignorance? An unwillingness to acknowledge that there might be someone at least the equal or perhaps better than some of the more popular weighing room figures in this country – the "Ollies", the "Bossys", Pumper (Jim Cassidy), Nash (Rawiller), Hughie (Bowman), Craig (Williams) or "Froggy" Newitt.
Maybe there's an element of all three. It is human nature to favour those we know, trust and have relied on in the past to get the job done. But that doesn't mean that those who come here are necessarily inferior.
Sure, they don't have the local track knowledge or the in depth understanding of the general tempo of Australian racing.
But these are world class riders, all with extraordinary balance, timing, strength and understanding of pace and tempo. They are perfectly well equipped to pick up the race pattern of any given event as soon as the field has gone a couple of hundred metres and adjust their tactics accordingly.
Local track knowledge should, in truth, not be that big an issue. It's not as if there is much variation, is there? Most Australian tracks are flat with relatively short straights, almost all sprints are run around a bend (save for Flemington) and the courses in Victoria all go in one direction, left handed.
A jockey such as Moore (or Richard Hughes, the reigning champion and his closest rival in Britain) might ride one day in the summer at a left-handed switchback, up-and-down track like Epsom during a day meeting and then on an all-weather surface at a right-handed course like Kempton in the evening.
The next day he might confront the huge expanse of Newmarket, with its straight course for races up to 1600 metres, and in the evening take mounts at the narrow, saucer-like Chester, with tight turns that are virtually the equal of Moonee Valley.
Recent big race results in this country seem to suggest there is nothing wrong with the ability of the raiders to get the job done. Mosse and his countryman Christophe Lemaire have won Melbourne Cups, Irishman Jamie Spencer landed the Mackinnon Stakes on Side Glance last year and Moore showed his class last week.
Everyone critical of the raiders has also had a field day with the three Aidan O'Brien contenders in 2008 who were all partnered by Coolmore's regular riders at that time: multiple Irish champion Johnny Murtagh (who returns to Flemington next week as a trainer of two Cup runners, Royal Diamond and Mutual Regard), Wayne Lordan and Colm O'Donoghue, who respectively rode Septimus, Alessandro Volta and Honolulu.
The trio led the field out at a breakneck speed for the first half of the event, collapsing like pricked balloons to trail in near the rear of the field. But as has subsequently been admitted, the Coolmore brains trust got their tactics wrong that day and failed spectacularly: its hard to blame the three riders for carrying out pre-race instructions given to them by a man who is acknowledged as one of the world's top trainers.
There's no doubt the riding style is different: European jockeys tend not to ride as tight and bunched as Australian riders. If they are drawn wide they do not worry about covering a bit of extra ground – especially in a staying race – if their horses are travelling well within themselves and at a comfortable tempo.
They don't ride "against the clock" quite the way Australian riders do, but they tend to build into a race and let a horse find its stride and rhythm. They probably don't persevere quite so much if a horse is not going to run a place, but they can get down low in the saddle and ride as hard in the finish as anyone if they have to.
There is more than one way to ride a race. Just because the European riders adopt a different approach to the locals, it doesn't make them wrong. In fact they have, in recent times, got it pretty much right.
