Dolan held off Warp Speed, Okita Soushi and fourth-placed Zardozi to complete an unlikely first four.
Knight’s Choice was paying $63.50, the Cup trifecta paid $22,576.80, while the first four paid $728,015.70 leaving a few lucky punters ecstatic as most searched the race book to discover the winner for the first time.
Japanese jockey Akira Sugawara, who rode the runner-up, said he had planned to go to the front but was slow out of the barriers and settled for plan B.
“We had watched many Melbourne Cups in the past so I thought we could come from the back and I got him into a real rhythm and went through the field and it was a really good run,” Sugawara said.
Dolan came to Australia from Ireland eight years ago, and was a contestant on TV’s The Voice in 2022.
“I watched every Melbourne Cup for the last 40 years. I thought my best chance was to get him [Knight’s Choice] to stay the trip and, hopefully, he can run home and do the quick sectionals he can on a good track, and he proved everybody wrong,” Dolan said.
He became emotional when reminded about his journey towards winning Australia’s greatest race.
“I can’t put it into words. It is the biggest race in the world. I have my family here and my partner Christine, our little baby Maisy, and my dad flew over from Ireland, and now you have me in tears.”
Based in New Zealand when she became the first woman to win the Caulfield-Melbourne Cup double with Ethereal back in 2001, Laxon now lives on the Gold Coast with Symons.
After Knight’s Choice’s strong winter in Queensland, including group placings in the Q22 and Tatt’s Cup, Laxon brought the horse to Melbourne for the spring, but it struggled, meaning expectations were low ahead of Tuesday’s race.
The horse had finished 14th of 18th in the Caulfield Cup and then sixth in the Bendigo Cup in a race that has not previously been a lead-in race for the Cup winner. The training pair’s other entrant Mission of Love had been scratched by Racing Victoria last week.
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