Unlikely lad steps up to Plate High five: Chad Schofield celebrates with trainer Danny O'Brien after winning the Cox Plate. You are a 19-year-old apprentice. You only started riding professionally three years ago. You didn't know until Wednesday you will be riding in the hardest race in the country to win, when the horse you will ride sneaked into the field after favourite Atlantic Jewel is scratched. You are on a three-year-old, and they rarely win this race. You are riding a horse that hasn't won at all. You are riding a horse that was rated a $101 shot after the barrier draw. Today, you are Chad Schofield, and the day before you won the $3 million Cox Plate, leading from start to finish on Shamus Award ($22.60) to cause one of the greatest upsets in the race's history. "I've won a Cox Plate," a stunned Schofield said in the heady aftermath at Moonee Valley. I'm speechless. Riding at the featherweight of 49.5 kilograms, as one of the few jockeys who could, Schofield and the three-year-old colt sat history and a score of well-credentialed rivals on their arse. The teenager is only the third apprentice of the modern era to win the weight-for-age championship of Australia. It is the first time a maiden has claimed the race since it was first run in 1922. Favourite It's A Dundeel ($4) and Puissance De Lune ($5.50) both had their hard luck stories. Gai Waterhouse's Fiorente loomed large on the outside when it mattered, and then came Happy Trails. Dwayne Dunn, on Happy Trails, saluted after they went past the post. Schofield thought he'd lost. "At the 200m, I thought I was home," Schofield said. But then the horse put a few short ones in late and on the line I didn't know. I really didn't. I saw Dwayne salute and my heart sank. Pulling up, Michael Rodd [on Masked Marvel] told me that the camera was on me. Schofield's father Glyn Schofield, who rode a treble at Rosehill earlier in the day that suddenly felt inconsequential, took his son to the races from the age of 10. There had never been any other career path for him, even if it's only blossoming now. The old man told his son on Saturday morning to "grab the race by the scruff of the neck." "I was talking to my father about the race this morning," Schofield said. He advised me that the horse can hang in. He's got no weight, he's tough. He said maybe I can grab the race by the scruff of the neck. When I spoke to [trainer] Danny O'Brien after that he was really good. He just left it up to me. O'Brien had booked Schofield because he knew he was one of the few who could make the weight. "There aren't many people around who can do that," the Flemington trainer said. He rode it a peach. The exuberance of youth. Youth was the order of the day, before 30,986 well-lubricated racegoers at Moonee Valley. Precedence's stirring victory in the Drake International Cup (2500m) could deliver trainer Bart Cummings his 88th runner in the Melbourne Cup, but it was his grandson and co-trainer James doing all the talking after the win. With the 85-year-old in Sydney, too ill to attend the races these days, and Precedence's owner Dato Tan Chin Nam high in the stands, there was nobody left to speak. Boldly, James Cummings challenged handicapper Greg Carpenter to deny the eight-year-old gelding a start. If Greg Carpenter gives him enough weight to get into the Melbourne Cup I can assure you Bart will be there. That should be some incentive," he said. There's still plenty of fight left in the old boy. He doesn't know how old he is. It wasn't entirely clear if he was talking about the horse or his grandfather. Later, when the moshpit of the enclosure had thinned, James said he had taken instruction from the master trainer before the race. "He loves it," he said. Bart lives for the spring in Melbourne. It would be a travesty if he didn't have one firing at this time of year. I gave him a call before the race, and we discussed the tactics, they proved right. Alas, Carpenter seems unlikely to bend for the Cummings legend. There is no place for sentimentality in racing. Don't tell that to O'Brien, who had seen Shamus Award encounter too much bad luck in his previous starts. "It's a bit of a fairytale," he said. He's presented so many times, he's been so close. It's a good story for racing. When someone keeps getting up, keeps trying and then all of a sudden on the biggest day they salute in the biggest race. With the least experienced jockey.