Aidan O'Brien probably expected a less inquisitive welcome to Melbourne than the one he got at Sandown.How are your horses? How will they run in the Melbourne Cup? Will you be cheating?Fit. Well. I wouldn't know how to.O'Brien arrived late on Monday to finish off the work he began back in March when he brought his three Cup horses, Septimus, Honolulu and Alessandro Volta, into his stable at Ballydoyle in County Tipperary.At Sandown he saw them for the first time since they left home almost three

Aidan O'Brien probably expected a less inquisitive welcome to Melbourne than the one he got at Sandown.

How are your horses? How will they run in the Melbourne Cup? Will you be cheating?

Fit. Well. I wouldn't know how to.

O'Brien arrived late on Monday to finish off the work he began back in March when he brought his three Cup horses, Septimus, Honolulu and Alessandro Volta, into his stable at Ballydoyle in County Tipperary.

At Sandown he saw them for the first time since they left home almost three weeks ago, and was introduced to the lively debate surrounding at least two of them.

It is assumed in most quarters that either Honolulu of Alessandro Volta - or both - will do as they would be required to do back home and act as pacemaker for their better-fancied stable companion Septimus.

Such a tactic is frowned upon in Australia where it could be regarded as team riding, which is totally contrary to the rules of racing.

Through the eyes of the world's greatest racehorse trainer, however, it's all a matter of interpretation.

"If you see a horse making the running in a race, you can't necessarily say he's a pacemaker," O'Brien said.

"But if a horse is being ridden very handy, and he ends up making the running, and he stays very well, then there's no point in taking him back."

As for taking the next step and providing even more help than the rules allow, O'Brien, whose riders were recently fined for doing exactly that in France, attempted to make his Melbourne Cup position clear.

"I'm saying it now: It would be great if they were able to lead," he said.

"It would be even better if they're not able to lead.

"I can't be any more honest than I'm being with you - they all stay very well, they all want every yard of the two miles (3200m) and in an ideal world we want a strong, even-run race.

"All the trainers know it's going to be a stronger-run Melbourne Cup than usually."

A belief based on the fact that O'Brien has the favourite and two others in the race.

But the Master of Ballydoyle took every opportunity to deflect such notions.

"Every one of those horses is doing his best," he said.

"I'll be over the moon if any of them win, it's so hard to win a race like this.

"You could make a case for all of them."

Which he duly did.

O'Brien said he had learned well from his previous Melbourne Cup missions with Yeats in 2006 and Mahler, who finished third last year.

Both were superior stayers, but O'Brien believes he may not have used their talents as well as he might have.

It won't be the same this time.

"It'll be let 'em roll down the straight and turn the first bend and the tempo will hopefully be increasing," he said.

"In an ideal world we'd like a strong, even tempo and if they get beat they get beat.

"At least we'll feel we gave them the best chance of winning.

"Because all of ours want the trip, there's no point sitting back."

For O'Brien and the Coolmore group that backs his stable, the prospect of winning the Melbourne Cup - with or without pacemakers - is taken almost as seriously as the English and Irish Classics they regularly claim.

The man who has won 22 Group One races this season agreed this year's Cup would be tougher than the two he has already contested, mainly due to the presence of a stronger European contingent.

"It just goes to show the regard the rest of the world has for this race," he said.

"It's a long way to come, but everybody wants to come, it's a race everybody wants to win ... it's the prestige.

"To win it would be unbelievable.

"It would mean the world to Coolmore."