Gerry Ryan wins the Melbourne Cup!!

[heraldsun1]

I see our Major Sponsor and ex Independent Director had a great success on Tuesday with the Melbourne Cup.

Maybe a good luck charm for the Storm next season!!

http://wwos.ninemsn.com.au/article.aspx?id=8118059

[Scooter]

Congratulations to Gerry on his win. Refer to below article from the Age. Ryan / Jayco will continue as a sponsor of the Storm. Look at the passion he has for the club and yet News made him one of the scapegoats.

http://www.theage.com.au/sport/horserac ... 17e1y.html

MELBOURNE Cup-winning co-owner Gerry Ryan was yesterday happy to look ahead to new challenges, beginning with Americain's tilt at next month's Hong Kong international carnival. For to glance behind would be to evoke some sombre memories of 2010.

Ryan has many links to many sports but the three that demand most of his passion and commitment are racing, rugby league and AFL. Yesterday, he was careful not to name them in any order. ''A triple dead-heat,'' he answered when asked to rank his sporting wish-list. ''I'm very soft, aren't I? It's a hard question so I went soft.''

It is a measure of his commitment to each of the sports that he would not pick his favourite. Surely in 2010, racing would come out on top.

Ryan realised a lifelong goal on Tuesday when Americain won him and part-owner Kevin Bamford a Melbourne Cup. ''A boyhood dream,'' he said yesterday.

Four weeks earlier, AFL team St Kilda, of which Ryan is a board member, was thrashed by Collingwood in the grand final replay. In April, the Melbourne Storm rugby league team, of which he had been a board member for the past three years, was stripped of its points and its recent premiership trophies following the salary cap scandal.

St Kilda's second grand final loss in the space of 12 months was difficult to take, but clearly the Storm disaster was the toughest blow of all for a man whose company, Jayco, had been a leading sponsor of the club for the past seven years. But instead of being deflated by the scandal, his resolve to continue his association has only hardened.

''It's a great club,'' he said yesterday. ''I am going to continue as a sponsor. I'll continue to support them. I'll be just sitting in a different seat.

''I had breakfast with [Storm coach] Craig Bellamy and he's very excited about the prospects of a new team around him - some young kids. He's a great bloke, Craig. He's just a perfectionist and he's growing as a coach and I think you'll see an even better coach next year - not that he wasn't already.

''To pick that team up … the hardest thing for the boys wasn't about winning on Saturday or Sunday or whenever, it was about training. How do you keep the motivation up when you are training for nothing? That's a pretty top coaching job he did to try and keep those boys up.''

Ryan was coming off just four hours' sleep after much celebrating following Americain's win in the 150th Melbourne Cup. The previous night's conversation began with the horse's next assignment in the group 1 Hong Kong Vase on December 12 and then touched on some goals for 2011, which included another Melbourne Cup tilt as well as the possibility of starting in the Prix de l'Arc de Triomphe in Paris in September.

The practicalities of a shot at both great races was also canvassed but ultimately such a tilt would come down to managing difficult quarantine regulations.

''It's timing. It's very tight. But it is amazing how creative you become about midnight,'' Ryan said. ''The trainer [Alain de Royer-Dupre] is very non-committal. He was talking about the Arc. But he is a very cautious man.''

What keeps bringing Ryan back to the Arc is that the horse will return to France to be trained after his Hong Kong stopover and that the Melbourne Cup is a handicap and Americain's handicap next year will not be anywhere near as generous as his trainer believed was the case in 2010.

''He's going to get a lot of weight [next year],'' Ryan said. ''It's up to the trainer. Straight after the group 2 at Deauxville [in August] he said 'what weight will he get' and we said 54 [kilograms] and he was very surprised. He expected about 58.

''He's a horse that has been running around with 59 on his back. He's a big horse. He could manage 58 [next year] but that's a question for the trainer.''

Ryan said he was comfortable with the decision to return Americain to France as not only do the training facilities suit, but he has great admiration for de Royer-Dupre. ''He's probably the equal best trainer in France,'' he said. ''Chantilly is a great training facility. Long tracks in the forest and a great environment for horses.

''My personal choice - come back here. But to have a runner in the Arc, it's one journey, isn't it?''

By next year, Ryan and Bamford may have found themselves another Melbourne Cup contender, but Ryan was not counting on it. ''It's so hard, so difficult. We've been trying to breed a couple, we've got a couple of stayers out of New Zealand last year so we'll wait and see.''

[JAMIE]

VERY VERY VERY well said Scooter. And a big thanks for posting a link to a Fairfax article! As I posted on facebook - It was so nice to see Gerry rewarded with a Melbourne Cup win, especially after the year he's had and with everything thrown at him.
The fact that after all of that he still commits to OUR club is not only an indication of his enormous purple hearted character, but a growing endorsment of the players, the fans and our wonderful coach.

[The Eagle]

VERY VERY VERY well said Scooter. And a big thanks for posting a link to a Fairfax article! As I posted on facebook - It was so nice to see Gerry rewarded with a Melbourne Cup win, especially after the year he's had and with everything thrown at him.
The fact that after all of that he still commits to OUR club is not only an indication of his enormous purple hearted character, but a growing endorsment of the players, the fans and our wonderful coach.

Gotta love his loyalty,thats the kind of fan your club will have forever

[LESStar58]

So Jayco will remain front of jersey sponsor or did Gauci manage to sign a new sponsor while he was off chasing GI for his legal fees?

[absentee]

So Jayco will remain front of jersey sponsor or did Gauci manage to sign a new sponsor while he was off chasing GI for his legal fees?

Currently, only Suzuki's logo is on the new training shirt (sleeves). I think Jayco might be going back to being a shorts-only sponsor - but I guess we'll have to wait and see. Whoever our sponsors are for 2011 and beyond - I hope everything is sorted before the new season starts. I don't want another situation where we have to patch on a sponsor for an entire season. It looks tacky and personally, I like my gear to be accurate.

[Bourbon Rat]

So Jayco will remain front of jersey sponsor or did Gauci manage to sign a new sponsor while he was off chasing GI for his legal fees?