Melbourne Cup: Matt Hill on calling the 'race that stops the nation'
Victorian racecaller Matt Hill
US rapper Eminem's lyrics might be the soundtrack for star racecaller Matt Hill's Melbourne Cup Day.
Eminem's massive hit 'Lose Yourself' urged the world to "lose yourself in the music, the moment, you own it, you better never let it go".
The line 'you only get one shot, do not miss your chance ..." sums up the task confronting Hill at Flemington on Tuesday.
Hill's call has the power to magnify the emotion of a Melbourne Cup win or spur the adulation of a newly crowned champion as they cross the line.
Irrespective of whether a caller is describing a Manangatang maiden or a Melbourne Cup, hundreds of split-second word choices are needed in the last 400m of a constantly changing picture as runners surge or tire.
Picking up the slightest thrilling thread could take Hill's call to another level but it also requires the cerebral sharpness of a Samurai sword.
Matt Hill at Flemington on Victoria Derby Day 2019
The last 200m of the Melbourne Cup is not only what punters hear as they either cheer their horse to victory or lament a misplaced bet, the call becomes an electronic historical document.
We all remember Greg Miles' famous call, "a champion, becomes a legend" when Makybe Diva won an unbelievable Melbourne Cup in 2005 or his 'it's history at Flemington, Michelle Payne" when Payne became the first woman to ride a Cup winner in 2015.
Getting the call wrong also goes down into history to which the late Bill Collins could attest as his "Kingston Town can't win" line still comes up 40 years after his proclamation in the 1982 Cox Plate.
There's no time for a racecaller to take back a mistake, especially one made while tens of millions of racing fans are watching Tuesday's great race on Tuesday.
"There's no liquid paper in racecalling because it's a live sporting event," Hill said.
Tuesday will be Hill's sixth Melbourne Cup as Victoria's, but some argue Australia's number one racecaller, but the local boy from the western suburbs has already dropped some pearls into racing's archives.
"Vow And Declare kicks ... Vow And Declare's won it for Australia. They're on top of the world," Hill's smooth tones proclaimed as the Australian-bred Vow And Declare held off the international charge in 2019.
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Jockey Craig Williams rides Vow And Declare to victory in the 2019 Lexus Melbourne Cup
Some callers like to have lines prepared for certain horses winning the $8m race but ultimately the Melbourne Cup is a horse race with unpredictable 500kg animals engaged so a result is never a foregone conclusion.
Hill has made a terrific impression on Australian sports fans with his impeccable delivery and superb preparation when called on to broadcast the Olympics or AFL on Channel 7.
But he said calling the Melbourne Cup was always his dream from well before his teenage years.
Hill said achieving his childhood dream has produced its small perils in the past but he has refined his approach to the task of taking the Melbourne Cup soundtrack to the English-speaking world.
"I'm Melbourne-born and my dream was always to call the Melbourne Cup so it's easy to get emotional and overawed by the occasion," Hill said.
"One year, it may have been Vow And Declare's year, Amanda Elliott held the Cup up and it really made me stirred up."
Any hometown emotion is tempered by Hill's primary aim for the Melbourne Cup, which he said was not to drop a pearl of wisdom or an iconic line. Getting the call, especially the result, right, was all that mattered.
"You never get criticised for an accurate call," Hill said.
"I don't think punters are expecting you to come out with the great line every time.
"They want you to call the race accurately."
Hill's Melbourne Cup preparation started from the moment he arrived home from Saturday's Victoria Derby meeting.
He said learning the colours was only a small part of his regimen for his biggest day of the year.
Hill said sleep was important but hard to come by on Melbourne Cup Eve so he focused on banking plenty of slumber on Sunday night.
"Monday night I tend to struggle to sleep because I'm a bit nervous and a bit wound up but I'd be a little bit worried if I wasn't.
Mark Zahra, Matt Hill and Damien Oliver at the Festival Of Racing launch in 2019 Picture: John Donegan/Racing Photos
"You kind of need to be nervous for those big moments.
"On Cup Eve, I won't look at the colours after a certain time to try and get my brain to switch off a bit," Hill said.
"I love radio so I'll listen to the BBC World Service or something like that where I can tune in and out of.
"I'll mentally take a Panadol and give myself a break."
Many forget the Melbourne Cup will be the seventh race on a 10-race card on the second day of Flemington's famous carnival, meaning Hill would have learned the colours carried by the jockeys of six groups of horses before the main event.
Memorising the silks of up to 90 runners before the Melbourne Cup on a day that starts well before the first race jumps at 10:30am is a tough mental task for Hill.
But he said he has his mental processes in place to get through in his usual unflappable manner.
"I'll be at Flemington at 7:30 and you're still concentrating 10 hours later at the last race," Hill said.
"It might be something as simple as making myself a cup of tea to get away from the colours for a few minutes because I think you can overcrowd the human mind.
"I make sure I take a minute to reset the mind between races because at carnival time, they're all big fields so it's important to forget about the race you've just done and reload.
"It's rinse and repeat stuff."
Matt Hill with Grace Ramage at Flemington Picture: David Caird
A unique feature of Melbourne Cup day is the 65 minutes between the preceding race at the big event in which pre-race entertainment hits the mounting yard for the enjoyment of those on track and watching the television coverage.
The extra time gives jockeys and trainers the chance to think, perhaps too much, about what lies ahead in the Melbourne Cup while the horses sense something big is happening so their senses heighten in line with thousands of years of evolution.
Hill tries not to get caught up in the pressure-packed atmosphere in the hour before the Melbourne Cup, preferring to ensure he has covered every base, both mentally and physically, to prepare him for a task 99.8 per cent of us would find impossible.
Hill's task is to get thousands of words out in the right order while assessing the movements of now 23 horses, trying to stay up to date with the tactics of 23 jockeys and painting the picture for both hardened and once a year punters.
It's no wonder Hill likes to take time to himself in the broadcast box high above the crowds at Flemington.
"You've got to be very careful and you've got to remember to breathe and almost block out the fanfare before the race," Hill said.
"You've got to fully concentrate for three-and-a-half minutes so you don't want to be worrying about breathing.
"You need to be breathing and remain focused, not letting the occasion get to you.
"I will make a concerted effort, about 30 minutes before the Melbourne Cup, to just take a step back and let the pre-race stuff breeze past me a little bit.
"I try not to get caught up in what's going on downstairs and just have another look at the colours in the racebook and focus on what I have to do.
"It might be as simple as sitting on a chair, staring into space and blocking it all out.
"There's an estimated audience of 20 million people I think, some astronomical number, but I try and think that I'm just calling the race to myself in the box.
"I think that I'm in the broadcast box, I'm hidden away and I'll just focus on what I'm doing."
Hill is like the rest of us that are engaged with the Melbourne Cup; he has his wish on how the race will unfold.
Matt Hill will call another piece of Melbourne Cup history at Flemington on Tuesday
We would all love to back the Melbourne Cup winner but a decisive result, rather than a desperately tight finish like the 2019 Cup, is top of Hill's wish list.
"Ideally you'd like finishing margins of two lengths by two lengths," Hill said.
"A clean cut finish is always better for the blood pressure."
Hill's job won't end once the Melbourne Cup is run and won, there are three more races after the Melbourne Cup.
A testament to Hill's professionalism is the fact the audience would have no idea whether he has backed the Melbourne Cup winner, is running on adrenaline or is seeking a quiet corner in which to curl up and sleep.
His classy delivery remains the same irrespective of the situation up in the caller's box.
The viewer won't know how Hill is feeling after the Melbourne Cup but the caller will get a sense of how he performed after one viewing of the replay.
Racing is full of critics but none are more severe than Hill's self-criticism, which happens during his post-meeting personal debrief.
"Very rarely would I walk to the car after the races and be 100 per cent satisfied with what I've done," Hill said.
"But I think that's healthy because I'm pushing myself and that want to improve all the time is a good thing
"Most of the time, it's like hitting a golf shot, you know when you're going well or not.
"I could say that I'm quite tortured, without sounding melodramatic, by perfectionism.
"But unfortunately, perfection in a race call is non-existent.
"Bruce McAvaney said to me once, 'you'll never leave a broadcast box happy'.
"And it's true."
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