Just when you think you’ve got a handle on the Melbourne Cup, it will surprise you.

The race’s habit of establishing trends, then breaking them, is probably one reason we’ve had one winning favourite (at $7) in the past 20 years.

How often do we tell ourselves that horses with a certain background or preparation can’t win the Cup, until they do?

While the trailblazing Vintage Crop was the exception that proved the rule, it was long believed that northern-hemisphere horses couldn’t win the Melbourne Cup without having had a prep run in Australia. The theory held true for 23 years, from 1994 to 2016.

Then it happened three times in four years — via Rekindling (2017), Cross Counter (2018) and Twilight Payment (2020).

Suddenly all such horses had to be included in the punter’s calculations. But it hasn’t happened since.

The Caulfield Cup, long the gold-standard lead-up race, fell completely out of favour for a decade from 2009 to 2018. No Melbourne Cup winner so much as ran in it, never mind won it.

Then Vow And Declare won at Flemington off a Caulfield Cup second. Now we find ourselves on a run of four straight Melbourne Cup winners coming through the Caulfield Cup including two who completed the double.

At least twice, obituaries have been written for the Australian-bred stayer, with no Melbourne Cup wins from 2000 to 2007 and only one in 14 years from 2010 to 2023. Aussie-breds have won both editions since.

There are several prospects for a drought-breaker on Tuesday.

One is Juja Kibo, winner of this year’s Metropolitan. Four horses completed that double in the 1950s, none since.

Another is Hopewell Rock, second in the Ebor at York. Despite being the UK’s most obvious Melbourne Cup lead-up, that race has never supplied the winner.