Angelo De Francesco Memorial Handicap - Race Report


Welcome to the running of the Angelo De Francesco Memorial Handicap, held at Glenarou on Melbourne Cup day 2023.  Nothing like the promise of some decent prize money to draw a few riders out of the woodwork on a public holiday.   A field of 62 gathered in warm conditions aided by a gusty northerly breeze.
7:30 bunch caught by Chop

In the mounting yard Bruce and Faye are busy dispening the numbers and transponders.  Meanwhile the jockeys, I mean riders are lathering up with sunscreen for what's sure to be a cracker of a race in sunny conditions.  At 9:30am, the starter has the first riders in his control and the limit group is away with Simon Bol and Tommy Gray getting a 48min headstart on scratch.

On paper, this is a very open race.  The 22, 12 and 7:30 (3rd scratch) groups all have riders capable of upsetting scratch and staying away.  The undulating course with a few steep pinches, could be just enough to upset the the heavy weights of the regular Sunday crit circuit.  Meanwhile the light weights would be relishing their advantage on these very hills.   Would victory go to those who broke up their groups or those who kept their groups together?

At 10:10:30, the 7:30 group rolls out, with a combination of youth, Ben Rodin (Footscray CC) and experience, Garry Clively.  The Trivelo boys Trevor Coulter, Russell Newnham and Damian Burke.  Fergus Fitzwater from Brunswick CC, Craig Harvey, Tim Anderson and myself.  My early calculation was that we would need to average at least 36km/h to stay away and each group in front or behind was +/- 1.5km/h per time gap. 


The third scratch group off 7:30 rode a very cohesive race for the best part or two laps and averaged 36.7km/h. Tom McDonough and Mark Edele who had beeen shelled earlier managed to hang on when caught. We were eventually caught by second scratch with about 6km to go and could not quite catch the lead group of four from the 12 & 22min groups 1st Steve White (22min) 2nd David O'Keeffe (12min) 3rd Stephen Saunders (22min) 4th Andrew Gannon (12min)  The bunch of 7:30 and 3:00min riders fought it out for 5th to 14th place. 14 seconds behind the winner.

David O’Keeffe had the ride of the day after breaking away with Andrew Gannon and doing the bulk of the work. Hats off to Steve White who flew under the radar and the ever improving Steven Saunders, who put in a gritty ride. 

Fastest rider on the day was Jesse Cropley. 

Northern president Vince Sunni paid his respects to Angelo, whom the race was named in honour of.  Fittingly Angelo’s granddaughter and pro cyclist Danielle De Francesco assisted with the presentations. 

Outstanding handicapping yet again by Bruce. The first 15 riders finished within 30 seconds and top 29 within 5 minutes. Full results 

I didn’t quite make it home for the cup, but it didn’t matter. Everyone in attendance knew where the real race was that day. 

Thanks as always to the organisers, officials and marshals for a great race and the crew behind the BBQ and the raffle.  Thanks to Cyclehouse Greensborough, Rob Moore from Cat1 clothing and all the supporters for their sponsorship of the event. 

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