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EVER since Vintage Crop slogged his way through the Flemington bog 20 years ago, we've taken a well balanced view. With a parochial chip on either shoulder, we have ridiculed the "foreign raiders".
We bemoaned how the Sheiks and aristocrats had made the Melbourne Cup as romantic as baked beans night in a boarding school dining hall. How there was no longer a place for the bush battlers. How it was better - yes, really! - being beaten by the Kiwis.
We taunted the foreign riders who went so wide they could have ordered a pie going down the straight the first time and picked it up on the way to the winning post.
Bart Cummings claimed the raiders were pitchforked in with weights that wouldn't slow a crippled tabby, and the track was doctored for them with the shameful cynicism the English prepare their cricket pitches.
And now, in the midst of a spring carnival that has been flatter than an X-Factor contestant's Bohemian Rhapsody? Bring on the raiders!
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From the moment Atlantic Jewel wobbled beneath Michael Rodd at trackwork, the Cox Plate would lack lustre. But when the maiden Shamus Award not only replaced the brilliant mare in the field, but also the winner's stall, the "weight for age championship of Australasia" plumbed ridiculous depths.
No disrespect to the winners. The 19-year-old rider Chad Schofield performed a marvellous feat of skill and nerve. Danny O'Brien trained his horse to the split-second. Bravo.
But, let's face it, the Shamus Award should be for the best and fairest in a Gaelic football team. Not, on exposed form, the Cox Plate winner.
Even before the race, without a Kingston Town, a Dulcify, a Might and Power or a Saintly to create anticipation, it was an unusually low key day. That a contender such as It's A Dundeel or Puissance de Lune could not step up made it anticlimactic.
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It did not help that the Cox Plate meeting had been split between a Friday night and the traditional Saturday. Or that the main race is now the last in order to service the great God of television news.
Although, at proletarian Moonee Valley, you expected racegoers' throats to be even more lubricated by the time the field jumped. Yet instead of the traditional roar there was merely a hearty cheer.
And so a nation turns its gambling eyes to ... Werribee. Once renowned as the place where Melbourne sent its, ahem, solid waste. Now it is where richly bred stayers serve their time in quarantine. From merely flushed to flushed with success.
There remains significant local interest in this Melbourne Cup. Gai Waterhouse has been heavily spruiking a syndication business called "Gai Living the Dream". Which is not some haven for same sex marriage, but the opportunity to race a Melbourne Cup horse with the great trainer.
But after Fiorente's bold third placing in the Cox Plate, Waterhouse could well achieve her Melbourne Cup ambition without the help of the mum and pop investors.
After winning last year's Melbourne Cup with Green Moon, and this year's Caulfield Cup with Fawkner, Lloyd Williams could produce almost as many runners as the raiders. Call him the United Stables of Lloyd.
Bart Cummings, at 85, could have an 88th Melbourne Cup runner with Precedence - this one trained with grandson James. But only if Precedence gets more weight. After he won the Moonee Valley Cup, James was screaming for a penalty like an Italian striker.
Still, this spring, the raiders are desperately needed provide some spark. To make it, in Waterhouses's words, a bit "sexy". And to think we once tried to kick them out of bed.
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