IT WAS supposed to be the year of the Irish raiders. Bart Cummings thought an international would take the spoils of our greatest race, the $5.5 million Melbourne Cup, back overseas.

But after declaring the first Tuesday in November would be a matter of "spot the Aussie", it was Cummings, closing in on his 81st birthday, who stood tall. He claimed group 1 win No.250 when outsider Viewed staved off the Luca Cumani-trained Bauer to give the master horseman a 12th Melbourne Cup.

They call Irishman Aidan O'Brien the world's best trainer, and, with 22 group 1 wins for the year, he has form on the board. But his Melbourne Cup attack fell apart at the seams, with Septimus (18th), Alessandro Volta (20th) and Honolulu (21st) failing after running Oakleigh Plate times out in front for the first 1000m.

O'Brien duly acknowledged Cummings to be the best of his craft, and the Cups King didn't muck around in racking up No.251, preparing another outsider - this time Swick, to win the Patinack Farm Classic on EmiratesStakes day at the weekend. "When you've been doing things long enough, you get a bit of luck now and again," Cummings quipped after Swick's win.

Swick, ridden by Michael Rodd, overpowered Turffontein, with that horse in the care of Cummings's son, Anthony. "Dad should give the game away," joked Anthony Cummings. "I wish he'd retired after the Cup."

Unfortunately for Anthony - but luckily for Australian racing - Cummings snr is having no such thoughts of retirement and is already planning to snare "a baker's dozen" in next year's Melbourne Cup. "I took a while to get to 250 [group 1s], but now I'm on the way to 300," Bart Cummings said. "As long as I keep getting up in the morning, I'll be here trying to get the odd winner."

From the joy of Bart Cummings and 21-year-old Melbourne Cup-winning jockey Blake Shinn to the despair of Corey Brown, who went within "half a nose" of Cup glory on Bauer. "What have you got to do to win a Melbourne Cup?" asked Brown in the wake of defeat. "There is half a nose between me being a hero and a villain. I know which one of them I'd rather be. I'm gutted."

Shinn, on the other hand, was "on top of the world" at the end of Cup week which was capped with a group 2 win on Bird Of Fire in the Matriarch Stakes on Saturday. "It has definitely been the best week of my riding career so far," Shinn said.

While Bart Cummings had already heaped plenty of praise on Shinn following the Melbourne Cup triumph, Bird Of Fire's trainer, Tony Vasil, joined in on the act. "This guy is 21 years old. He's got a Melbourne Cup, a Sydney jockeys' premiership. He has the world at his feet," Vasil said.

Just like Rodd, who was the jockey of the Flemington carnival last year, when he won the Cup on Efficient.

This time around, Rodd was again crowned rider of the four-day Flemington feast. He snared a group 1 on Swick, the Saab Quality on Moatize, the Carbine Club on Dr Doutes, and a race on Cup day aboard Dandaad for Bart Cummings. "He is a great trainer. You can't help but be confident when you get on his horses, especially in these big races," Rodd said.

And Rodd's confidence going into Flemington was sky high. He had won the Cox Plate the week before on exciting frontrunner Maldivian, which turned around its spring fortunes with a dominant win.

A fortnight before that, Rodd had also won the Caulfield Guineas on Whobegotyou. Like Maldivian, Whobegotyou is trained by Mark Kavanagh. Rodd and the trainer were a gun combination last year, and it seems nothing has changed.

They enjoyed a treble on Cox Plate day as well as other winners during the carnival that hit full swing at Caulfield on October 11. "Mark is a champion bloke to ride for," Rodd said. "He knows his horses so well and he has the faith in me to get the job done. It's a perfect match."

Girl power came to the fore on Victoria Derby day when Clare Lindop upset Rodd and Kavanagh's hot favourite Whobegotyou to win the main race on despised outsider Rebel Raider. And champion Sydney trainer Gai Waterhouse ensured she wasn't left out of the action with a group 1-winning double courtesy of exciting colt Northern Meteor (Coolmore Stud Stakes) and Theseo (Mackinnon Stakes), both ridden by Nash Rawiller.

Caulfield trainer Mick Price struck early with a Toorak Handicap triumph (Alamosa) and a Thousand Guineas win (Gallica), while likeable Newcastle conditioner Kris Lees gave favourite backers reason to cheer when dominant filly Samanatha Miss followed a Cox Plate third with a runaway VRC Oaks victory.

Samantha Miss was ridden by Hugh Bowman, who scored a breakthrough group 1 win in Melbourne with the victory.

Former Godolphin rider and now the retained Australian rider for Darley, Kerrin McEvoy, gave All The Good a trouble-free run out wide to claim the Caulfield Cup. While All The Good is raced by Godolphin, with McEvoy answering the call to reunite with the stable for that race, the jockey was responsible for the butcher of the carnival when beaten into second place on Aichi by the David Hayes-trained Hips Don't Lie on Cup day. McEvoy did manage a group 1 for Darley, on the Peter Snowden-trained Forensics in the Myer Classic.

Hayes had a quiet four days by his standards at his home track. He saddled up three winners - Hips Don't Lie, Acosta and Stokehouse - all in minor races, as well as a number of placings. But somehow that was considered good enough for Hayes to swoop past Bart Cummings, who picked up two majors and two group 1 placings with Mimi Lebrock among his four winners for the carnival.

Like Rodd as the jockey of the Flemington carnival, Hayes was awarded a travel voucher which is equivalent to a handy bit of cash. Yet Cummings was unconcerned about prizes like that. For him, the fact he flew the Australian flag in the Melbourne Cup and beat the internationals was reward enough. And of course, the money in the bank and the celebrations that go with success were soaked up, too.

"[Dato Tan] Chin Nam [Viewed's owner] opened his purse and looked after about 45 of us," Cummings said of the Melbourne Cup aftermath. "We were all very happy after that. A lot happier than those Irish boys that rode in the Melbourne Cup.

"I will never work out what they were trying to do, but I'm not complaining. They can come back any time."