Clearly the win by Catalogue in the Melbourne Cup was the pinnacle of his career, and came as a major upset. We saw that in the previous extract from the Sydney Mail. Another Melbourne writer was even more harsh declaring Catalogue “a plain, clumsy-looking old gelding that you wouldn’t have considered in the Cup picture at all, makes hacks of the opposition. Catalogue will long be remembered for the trouncing he gave the best handicappers in the land. Without fluke he outstayed and outran them. And to cap it all, instead of dragging a weary body back to scale, he was fresh enough to run another two miles.”
Catalogue was bred by Wilfred Stead at his Flaxmere Stud at Hastings who was notably the owner of the stallion Sasanof. The colt was purchased privately by Ted Barnes for £100 as a rising 2yo after Stead’s death. Barnes was the owner of the Grand Hotel at Palmerston North, and he sold an interest in Catalogue
