Makybe Diva connections reject track complaints

Connections of Makybe Diva have rejected allegations the Flemington track was prepared to help their mare win a record third successive Melbourne Cup.

The seven-year-old won Australasia's richest race on Tuesday on a track that had been rated as "dead" after the Victoria Racing Club watered it on Sunday and Monday.

Connections of Makybe Diva and Irish stayer Vinne Roe had threatened to scratch their horses if the track was too firm.

Gai Waterhouse, whose horse Mr Celebrity finished 23rd, described the watering as "a disgrace" while John Hawkes, whose Caulfield Cup winner Railings finished 14th, said: "I thought it was the Melbourne Cup, not the Makybe Cup".

Antony Freedman, the brother of Makybe Diva's trainer Lee, rejected the criticism.

"I think that's clutching at straws a bit," he told Sydney radio station 2KY. "Obviously I refute that and I think it's pretty poor taste to be quite honest.

"I think it should be about this amazing horse and not about the track.

"I thought it was a very fair track. The ones that ran down the back were probably always going to run down the back."

Flemington track manager Terry Watson said he had used the sprinklers after a weather forecast predicting temperatures above 30 celsius and a drying wind.

"It was a safe track, prepared well for the event taking into account the forecasts and the way things were reported to us," he told Australian Associated Press.