EMMA FREEDMAN: The Everest, Melbourne Cup, Caulfield Cup, Cox Plate cement the rise of spring carnivals

The traditionalists may not like the glitz and glamour of the duelling spring carnivals, but they have brought racing to the fore of the national consciousness.

Races once synonymous with what it means to be an Australian, having a punt and a good time, like the Melbourne Cup may have fallen out of favour over the past decade with the wider public, but the Cup, along with racetrack party that is now The Everest and its record crowd are making racing cool again.

The younger crowds are loving the great game as the newest young guns in the sport are taking it to a new level.

All the big players have played their part on the biggest of stages.

Jamie Melham’s super steer was the final piece of a Melbourne Cup winning puzzle that started with Tony and Calvin McEvoy taking a massive punt on Half Yours.

Their fearless placement of a horse was the crescendo of a meteoric rise from a Benchmark 64 in Seymour to a historic double cups triumph in the space of six months. It is truly remarkable.

The internationals tried hard, but the might of the Australians prevailed in the nation’s greatest race with the unfashionably bred Half Yours showing he is a horse with the constitution of an ox and a heart of a lion. “A tough legend of a horse,” said Melham.

The Caulfield and Melbourne Cup double win was a tip of the hat to tradition and the future. We now have another woman to add to the honour roll and young Calvin joins great mate Sam Freedman as a next generation conditioner with a three-handled cup on the mantlepiece. These lads can train.

The success of the Everest was a victory for the revolution of the Sydney spring carnival. The Sydney Melbourne turf war shows no signs of ending any time soon, with what’s right and wrong for sport being hotly debated as toes are trodden on.

Whatever you think of Racing NSW trying to steal the limelight of the Caulfield Cup, you cannot question the success of the Everest, given Ka Ying Rising brought a flock of new fans to the track.

To the naysayers who hate change and the brash fun of the richest race on turf: please be quiet now.

Raise your white flag. You have lost your sad war.

There have been some fascinating storylines play out this spring with several star hoops riding high. Mark Zahra has been in career-best beast mode form. In his words, he has been “forgetting what it’s like to lose”.

Confidence in sport is arguably just as important as the physical preparation and mental clarity to achieve at the highest level.

Autumn Glow is undefeated. The new girl on the block who, in her namesake season next year, will be the horse to take racing to a new audience after winning the Golden Eagle. We have our new hero.

If she is our princess of the turf, then the undisputed queen is Via Sistina. The farewell to the current Moonee Valley with the weight-for-age beast claiming her second Cox Plate in stirring style. The classic pairing of Chris Waller and James McDonald showed why they will forever be an iconic duo.

Off the racecourse, global stable superpower Godolphin have produced four individual Group 1-winning colts in a month: Attica, Observer, Beiwacht and Tentyris, all for different trainers.

A year ago, there were whispers that they would be shutting up shop in Australia. They now have a stranglehold on the stallions of the future. A barn full of sire stars awaits.

And there is still one last chapter for each carnival to play out on Saturday with Five Diamonds Day in Sydney and Champions Day in Melbourne.

Champions Day has cemented the success of the final day of the Cup Carnival, with a meeting of the best of the best across the six furlongs, mile and 2000m.

Two formidable two-year-old contests at Rosehill Gardens and Flemington will give us a glimpse at some potential stars of the future.

In the Five Diamonds for five-year-olds, Tony Gollan will be looking to add to Transatlantic’s east coast success this spring in the $2 million race. A Group 1 winner of the Toorak Handicap, where he led from go to woe, he is the class in the field and without a doubt, the second best athlete in the powerful Gollan yard, behind Antino.

The wide draw is a concern from the 1800m start, but Tommy Berry is riding with confidence. The dangers are Rise at Dawn for the Hayes boys, who has drawn soft, and Militarize, a former Group 1 winning colt whose stud career didn’t go to plan. He’s still looking to win his first race since his initial retirement and the ultimate gear change.

The Golden Gift for the two-year-olds is the other race of intrigue at Rosehill, and in the past has given us horses to follow into the autumn juvenile classics like the Golden Slipper.

Thrill Hunter is the only winner in the field, with only four others having early career starts.

I’m keen to see what the blue-blood Defenseman can produce, along with the Waterhouse Bott-trained Revengeance, who comes through the superior form reference in the Breeders Plate.

The big winner of these two fantastic carnivals has actually been the future of racing. I haven’t felt so confident in the custodians of the sport the athletes on the track and those who put in the countless hours to make it all happen for a very long time.

Cheers to a carnival that celebrated toil and talent, the old and the new.