Cup - Cup

The soundtrack for the Cup was composed, arranged & conducted by Bruce Rowland, one of Australia's most successful and highly acclaimed composers. Bruce's work is well-known within Australia and internationally having worked on an extensive and impressive list of films in Australia and the United States including the Man from Snowy River, which saw the soundtrack achieve double platinum status and won Bruce his first AFI award. Following this tremendous success, Bruce then wrote the scores for Phar Lap (1983) and Rebel (1985) winning him a further two AFI's. Since then, Bruce has written the scores for over 40 films in Australia and the USA. The Melbourne Cup has been billed 'The Race That Stops a Nation', but never in the history of Australia's 150 year old Thoroughbred Classic has there been so dramatic a contest as the 2002 running. The Cup, directed by Simon Wincer, follows the world's finest horsemen as they plot their paths across the globe - from Europe, the Middle East and Asia - and into the Winners Circle of the richest and most prestigious two-mile handicap. But the heart of this true story is a young Australian jockey, Damien Oliver, who loses his only brother in a tragic racing accident just days before the great race. To make matters worse, the same fate claimed Damien and Jason Oliver's father decades before. Following his brother's death, Damien suffers through an almost endless series of discouraging defeats only to triumph on one of sport's greatest stages in one of the most thrilling finales in all of sport.