Almost every day for the past year, Corey Brown thought he may never get a chance to avenge his Melbourne Cup heartbreak of 12 months ago.
Yesterday he set the record straight by steering the Mark Kavanagh-trained and Laurence Eales-owned Shocking to victory in the $5.65 million race at Flemington.
A year earlier, Brown had endured the agony of being beaten by a nose when his mount Bauer narrowly failed to run down Viewed.
Such a defeat had the Sydney jockey thinking he may be doomed on the grandest stage this sporting nation has to offer.
Those fears are now dispelled.
And didn't Brown let everybody know about it?
''I've finally won the Melbourne Cup,'' an elated Brown boomed moments after Shocking had beaten international stayers Crime Scene and Mourilyan in the Group 1 feature.
''My dream has come true. I can't describe it, it's unbelievable. If everybody could feel what I'm feeling now, it's incredible. Last year was very disappointing, but I've got it now.''
Kavanagh, too, struggled to contain his emotions at the result. It was the trainer's first Melbourne Cup success.
''This is a dream I don't wanna wake up from,'' Kavanagh said. ''I can't believe I've finally done it. It hasn't sunk in yet.''
It almost turned out disastrously for Brown and Kavanagh after the jockey was caught wide without cover for the majority of the trip.
When asked after the race if he was disappointed in the ride, Kavanagh smiled and said, ''I'm not going to admit to that now. It was a champion ride!''
Eales, who runs earth-moving company EA Hire, was ecstatic with the win.
''Wildest dream come true, absolutely mind blowing,'' he said surrounded by family and friends after the race. ''I love horses, I've had them all my life, my father had them and now I've got a bit of coin behind me, I thought I'd have a bit of a crack.''
The son of a Cairns butcher now has $3.3 million in prizemoney to add to the already substantial coin he made himself through what grew from one excavator into Australia's largest earthmoving hire company.
The shock of the win was also felt in the betting ring just after the race was over, with many punters scrunching their luckless tickets.
One voice echoed loudly in joy, a few celebrated with clenched fists as Shocking went past the post, but the hum of activity was oddly muted.
A buzz filled the betting ring for most of the afternoon, but once Olivia Newton-John sang the national anthem, a quiet sense of anticipation resonated. But with the two favourites Viewed and Alcopop missing places, the bookies breathed sighs of relief.
The 102,000-strong crowd was down 3000 people on last year, although moving around seemed much easier and one bookmaker complained that Melbourne Cup day business had been going downhill for the past decade.
The same punters were coming through, he said, but where they were once putting $100 on a win, they had become more conservative with $50 bets or $40 each way.
Gloomier financial times in the past year did not help, with one businessman in the Birdcage area overheard saying, ''My company nearly went under''.
For TAB Sportsbet the news was much brighter, with Victorian and NSW punters betting a record $95.6 million on the race, with one happy punter taking away $440,000 for Shocking's win. ACTTAB marketing manager Kevin Woolfe said in Canberra $2.465million was bet on the Melbourne Cup, up 4.76 per cent on last year.
As Melbourne has only emerged from its winter hibernation, among the masses flesh was fashionable and was on display in tones from blindingly untanned to the overly fake. Among the men, some were dressed as though they could happily stand in a church for a wedding, while others had not looked in a mirror.