Melbourne Cup: Fiorente connects as 6-1 favorite

Fiorente gave favorite backers and trainer Gai Waterhouse reasons to celebrate with his win in Tuesday’s $5,658,000 Melbourne Cup at Flemington Racecourse in Australia.

Fiorente won the two-mile handicap as the 6-1 favorite, the first winning favorite in Australia’s most famous race since Makybe Diva won the race for third consecutive year in 2005.

A 5-year-old Irish-bred horse by Monsun, Fiorente gave Waterhouse, one of Australia’s leading trainers, her first career win in the Melbourne Cup, which drew a field of 24.

Ridden by Damien Oliver, Fiorente raced in midpack for the first 1 1-2 miles. Oliver guided Fiorente to the outside in early stretch and took the lead with a quarter-mile remaining, winning by three-quarters of a length. Red Cadeaux, second by a nose in the 2011 Melbourne Cup, led in early stretch and held second at 60-1, finishing 1 1-2 lengths in front of Mount Athos.

Dandino, who won the American St. Leger at Arlington Park in August, finished fifth. The 4-year-old filly Verema, the winner of two Group 2 races in France in the summer, broke down badly in the first mile and was euthanized.

Fiorente races for a partnership. He was second in the 2012 Melbourne Cup in his first start in Australia. Earlier in his career, Fiorente raced in England where he won the Group 2 Princess of Wales’s Goldsmiths Stakes at Newmarket in July 2012. Fiorente was a Group 2 winner in Australia in September, and was third in the Group 1 Cox Plate over 1 1-4 miles on turf on Oct. 26.