Simon O'Donnell gets four cracks at his Boy's Own tale Simon O'Donnell at his stud in Willowmavin, near Kilmore. Simon O'Donnell sees similarities in his job this week and the sporting lives he long ago left behind. The prosperity of his four Melbourne Cup horses is now beyond his control, so he concentrates on ensuring the 30-odd people who have shares in them soak up an experience they might never have again. "Tuesday's an interesting day," he says, and having had runners under the O'Donnell Thoroughbreds International banner in 11 of the past 12 Cups, he should know. People handle situations differently, and you adjust accordingly. Simon O'Donnell playing for St Kilda against Geelong. It's no different to a sporting team - all's OK over there, [but] we need to contribute a bit more over here where it's obvious there's someone who's struggling a bit. He refers to them as partners, the people who have joined him and Terry Henderson as OTI owners, pursuing a passion he's convinced leaves you only when you're carried out in a box. It's a deliberately inclusive term for an organisation the former Australian cricketer, St Kilda footballer and TV personality says can't afford to spend big, and doesn't want to regardless. "Those four horses, they're not cheap, but they're not out of reach," he says. OTI buys in the $250,000-$750,000 window, and those owners living it up at Flemington will have paid as little as $10,000. It's important that we give a broad spectrum of people an opportunity to experience what we'll experience on Tuesday. O'Donnell bowling in a World Series Cricket game in 1990. Now 51 and claiming he's been bouncing about this past week like a 21-year-old, O'Donnell is chasing a euphoria to top anything he felt as a Boy's Own tale through 24 games for St Kilda, and 87 one-day internationals and six Tests as a cricketing all-rounder for Australia. Bauer's second by a nostril to Viewed in 2008 gave him the greatest rush of his sporting life. He yearns to know what it feels like to go one stride better. His late father Kevin, who imbedded this racing bug, used to say that 99 per cent of the time the horse with the momentum wins. "He's got it wrong once," O'Donnell says, recalling Bauer charging clear of the pack and running down Bart Cummings' 12th Cup winner, but never quite getting past him. We had the momentum to get to him, but you could see our bloke literally open his mouth and pull his lips back. He was gasping for air and so was Viewed. They were both hammered, had nothing more to give. The recall sends tingles down his spine for the umpteenth time. O'Donnell baulks at the notion that everything else was effectively killing time until arriving at his equine calling, that he was always going to pursue a career his father dabbled in and which lit something inextinguishable in him when his first horse, McKusker, won on their home track at Deniliquin when he was still a teenager. But he concedes that even wife Rebecca and their children, Tom (18), Eliza (14) and James (12) can't comprehend the extent to which it now consumes him. I couldn't dream of doing anything else. [To reach] the month leading up to the Melbourne Cup, things are going well ... couldn't dream of it. OTI has formally been around for about 15 years, but even while hosting Channel Nine sports shows after his playing days ended, horses occupied more and more of his time. The business has evolved; while the paddocks at Willowmavin, near Kilmore, are full of horses, he now puts more work into people than leading, feeding and mucking out boxes. He and Henderson are unashamed in their conviction that Europe breeds the best stayers, that tweaking the gene pool here to compete could take decades. Several times a year they're on a plane, searching for up-and-comers who are already racing and might not even be for sale. The key, O'Donnell says, is not looking at four horses, but 40. Three-quarters of the 50 horses on the OTI books are imported, and he sees that number only growing. Many of those reside overseas, with the plan to join the "raiders" each November and, if successful, return home but leave the Cup and prizemoney in Australia. Gatewood, Lidari, Brambles and Au Revoir are proof that putting your money with OTI can make dreams come true, but O'Donnell says anyone who thinks finding a Melbourne Cup runner is as simple as jumping on a plane, buying a horse, whacking a collar on it and bringing it back to Australia is delusional. OTI employs about 25 people here and in Europe, and the lights at Willowmavin come on at all hours to monitor their investments. Live racing [on pay TV] is fantastic. You get up during the night, 2.30am. It's not good for your sleeping patterns - if you're excited after a win or a really good run, you're lying there staring at the ceiling for a while," he says. Seeing what horses do to people fascinates him, especially in this week. This year, the sense of anticipation is multiplied by four - a feat he doubts will be repeated - and he's urging the owners to revel in every dinner, cocktail party, parade and conversation. This is an iconic sporting event in Australia - in the world now. Suck it all up and enjoy it. Cup days past are a blur. He'll arrive about 11am, head to an OTI entertainment area, then take anyone who's interested down to greet the horses as they arrive on course. You watch them walk around for the 4812th time in the last two months. You remember very little of that. They saddle up, "and you remember none of that." Then it's into the mounting yard, and on with a race spent looking for a cap, an arm in your colours, whether the horse beneath is still travelling when they turn for home. And at the end of the race, you remember very little of that. He feels an affection for all four runners, not least the Peter Moody-trained Brambles, who spent two years off the track with a tendon injury and was weeks away from a life at the pony club. O'Donnell reckons he's changed his mind as to the best of them eight times in recent weeks, did so again at Werribee on Sunday morning, and will doubtless flip again before they jump. Henderson knows something he doesn't - that feeling of what it's like to win the Cup, which he did with Doriemus in 1995 before they teamed up. O'Donnell jokes that he doesn't mind lording it over him. He went to the racing mass on Sunday morning with Doriemus' Cup. I refused to go. I want to square up with him - I don't mind two-one, but I don't like one-nil. Back to business, he says there's no room for chest-beating in what they do, that whatever happens on Tuesday will be reviewed in Wednesday's sober light. We're here to be here this week, but 2015 will be on us in a flash. But until the race is run, he can afford to embrace the fantasy. To see them passing the clock tower, and one of OTI's quartet bursting clear of the pack, surging for the line with no one to run down. Ahhh. I dream about it. If it happens it'll be extraordinary. And it'll be two-one.