Inside Fulham Prison in eastern Victoria is a man who will listen more intently than many to Saturday's Caulfield Cup.He is doing time for thumping a neighbour who gave him trouble, and like the punters who on Wednesday lined up to back the Cup favourite Weekend Hussler, he has a lot riding on the horse.But his currency isn't cash.It is Mars bars.Andy the inmate is one of hundreds of fans and punters who have written to Weekend Hussler's trainer Ross McDonald since the horse started winning last

Inside Fulham Prison in eastern Victoria is a man who will listen more intently than many to Saturday's Caulfield Cup.

He is doing time for thumping a neighbour who gave him trouble, and like the punters who on Wednesday lined up to back the Cup favourite Weekend Hussler, he has a lot riding on the horse.

But his currency isn't cash.

It is Mars bars.

Andy the inmate is one of hundreds of fans and punters who have written to Weekend Hussler's trainer Ross McDonald since the horse started winning last spring.

"He wrote to us a few times from prison and said he'd been backing him with other blokes in there and winning a load of Mars bars," McDonald said.

"He seems pretty keen, so we sent a hat and some stuff and now he's the number one fan.

"At least he never dropped off like some of 'em have."

Weekend Hussler lost a few admirers when he finished a poor and uncharacteristic eighth in the Turnbull Stakes at Flemington two weeks ago.

It was a defeat that McDonald and his wife and co-trainer Margaret have taken personally.

"He'll get beaten again one day," Margaret McDonald said.

"Every horse gets beaten.

"Manikato got beat, Kingston Town got beat. Even Phar Lap got beaten.

"They all get beaten. It doesn't mean they're no good.

"But people just wrote him off.

"Incredible."

Which is why they are happy to receive letters like Andy's that come in such volume that the McDonalds have had to employ someone to handle them.

"If this horse can bring people back to the races and they can get some pleasure and enjoyment out of him, that'd be great," McDonald said.

Weekend Hussler is the $4.20 favourite for the Caulfield Cup, thanks to a flood of money from punters as willing to forgive him as the McDonalds are.

Along with son Clinton and jockey Brad Rawiller, they have spent the past fortnight studying videos, pondering excuses and coming to the conclusion that Weekend Hussler will win on Saturday.

"Brad said he made three runs on him, he just didn't have anything left at Flemington," McDonald said.

"No horse in Australia would have done it."

Other jockeys did what they were entitled to do and made sure he raced deep from his wide gate and, according to Rawiller himself, he made the mistake of assuming they would give him some leeway.

"Brad was shaking when he came in," McDonald said.

"He said it was the most horrendous thing that's ever happened to him.

"But he shouldn't have expected anyone to give him an inch.

"He should have got in when he had the chance.

"But he chose not to do that and that's where it went wrong."

In the post mortems of the Turnbull, Rawiller turned to his brother Nash, one of Sydney's leading riders.

"Nash told him he made three blues," McDonald said.

"The first is that the other jockeys aren't your friends out there."

The rest was a mixture of subtle errors and plain bad luck.

All of which will be ironed out on Saturday in a race worth more Mars bars than Andy the jailbird cares to think about.