- Monday 3rd November 2025
ABC's Andrew McGarry spoke with me about horse racing and my painting of Makybe Diva.
'Like a spaceship landed at the MCG': The artist's view.
It wasn't just the racing world or the general public that was taken by the Diva's third Cup win.
Shane Jones is a Ballarat/Melbourne based artist - but he has had a love of horses all his life. He remembers walking with his brother as a young child up tp the stables of Hall pf Fame trainer Jim Moloney, where he later became an apprentice jockey.
'Visually, racing is stunning, because you've got everything - you've got the human figure, the horse form, the colours, you've got the landscape, all genres in one', Jones says.
Makybe Diva Winning Her Third Melbourne Cup, 2010, oil on canvas, 76 x 91 cm
Shane Jones loved horses from his earliest years, as an artist later in life he was drawn to put Makybe Diva's third Cup win on canvas.
His vivid oil painting, Makybe Diva Winning Her Third Melbourne Cup, captures the finish of that win, surrounded by a TV screen with a pause button in the corner as if someone was watching a video of the race.
The Diva is captured in full flight muscles working in perfect unison as she passes the line.
'I always watched the Melbourne cup, I was aware of her (Makybe Diva) from the start. To win three - I mean, if she only won two, I probably wouldn't have painted her', Jones says.
But three, that's off this planet, really - it was pretty amazing'.
Jones says the Melbourne Cup is special - both for the history and the hype.
'It's a handicap race, so the best don't necessarily win - in weight for ages races (like the Cox Plate) often the best do win, because it's level pegging', he says.
'But the Melbourne Cup's a bit like the Stawell Gift ... the best get handicapped to bring them back to the field'.
He was emotionally invested in the third win, but when did he decide to paint her?
'Afterwards, it was such a unique thing - it was almost like if a spaceship landed at the MCG, you be in awe ... that's like Makybe Diva winning her third Melbourne Cup', he says.
'It was this out-of-world-experience. I can't see any horse doing it again, because everything has to go right over three years'.
'It did for her. Phar Lap probably could have done it, but his first one he got badly ridden by the jockey, and the third one was weighted out of it ... Peter Pan (a two-time winner in the 30s) could have probably won three but he had shoulder trouble - but could have won three is not the same as actually doing it'
The painting is now held at the State Library of Victoria
Read the article here: HERE
