Gai Waterhouse was bubbling over with excitment when she landed her first Caulfield Cup win with the gutsy Descarado who endured a tough run but refused to give up in the $2.5 million race.Waterhouse, who landed her 100th Group One winner earlier this month with Herculian Prince in The Metropolitan at Randwick, has been trying to win the 2400m Caulfield Cup, one of Australia's top four races, for many years.Her father, the legendary Tommy Smith, won the Caulfield Cup four times, and Waterhouse h

Gai Waterhouse was bubbling over with excitment when she landed her first Caulfield Cup win with the gutsy Descarado who endured a tough run but refused to give up in the $2.5 million race.

Waterhouse, who landed her 100th Group One winner earlier this month with Herculian Prince in The Metropolitan at Randwick, has been trying to win the 2400m Caulfield Cup, one of Australia's top four races, for many years.

Her father, the legendary Tommy Smith, won the Caulfield Cup four times, and Waterhouse had run second with Aqua D'Amour in 2006 and third with Iron Horse in 1996.

On Saturday the stable saddled up Herculian Prince ($9, ninth) and the lesser fancied Descarado ($17).

The four-year-old, by So You Think's sire High Chaparral, had some good form to recommend him including a second to another High Chaparral gelding, Shoot Out, in the AJC Australian Derby at Randwick last autumn.

Two starts ago he won the Group Two Hill Stakes (1900m) at Rosehill.

Ridden by Chris Munce, the gelding was trapped wide from barrier 15 but kept finding under pressure to hold out New Zealander Harris Tweed ($17) by a length with Monaco Consul ($21) 1-1/4 lengths away third.

Putting in a great Melbourne Cup trial to finish strongly for fourth was reigning Melbourne Cup winner Shocking ($4.60 fav) who had to shoulder topweight of 57kg on the heavy (9) track.

"Isn't it exciting, it's absolutely a dream come true," Waterhouse said.

"He's improved so much, he was so relaxed and Nash (Rawiller) rode him on Saturday and I said to him isn't that lyrical work, and he said 'no Gai, magical'. I thought well that's good enough for me.

"I knew Chris (Munce) would be the right man. I asked Andrew Ramsden (part-owner). I was going to put him in the Herbert Power I said to Andrew, and he said 'I don't know if I'd run him in the Herbert Power, I've won three Caulfield Cups I'd run him in the race we're in'.

"I said well 'Who am I to say, you've won three, I've won none'.

"I gave him a list of jockeys and he said I like Chris, and I said so do I. He knows how to ride my horses, on the speed. Now it's all history."

"My husband (Rob) found the horse in New Zealand.

"He rang me up one day and said 'I've got a horse I want to buy' and I got the price tag and I said that's a bit expensive, and he said he's a very good horse and that was him.

"It's a dream. It's no use kidding yourself. Last year I sat at the Cup and I thought, bugger this, I'm going to have a few stayers around me. I'm sick of just being a bystander and Rob went out and bought four horses for me and two of them ran today."

Lightweight Munce said he was only engaged for the mount when stable manager Mark Webbey rang him out of the blue a week or 10 days ago.

"What a thrill," Munce said.

"Gai's a wonderful trainer and has been a great part of my career. I've had a lot of success with her.

"No doubt when you get on her horses you can ride tham confidently."

"It's probably just one of those combinations that's clicked from day one and always has.

"Obviously the way she trains her horses and the way I ride them, probably always will. It's just a proven system.

"He did a great job, the track might have played into his hands a bit today, I've certainly got no worries with him at the two miles (3200m of the Melbourne Cup).

"He was 47-wide going out of the straight here the first time. He didn't get one off the fence until round the back at about the 1800 metres, so most horses would have put the white flag up probably at the 600-metre mark.

"To his credit he stuck it right out and that's why I've got no doubt he'll run the two miles.

"It's the big four now, so everything else is a bonus."

Munce won a Melbourne Cup on Jezabeel (1998), a Cox Plate on Savabeel (2004) and Golden Slippers on Prowl (1998) and the Waterhouse-trained Dance Hero (2004) before Saturday's Caulfield Cup success.