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A solid 18-carat gold Melbourne Cup trophy tours Australia every year — it's travelled half-a-million kilometres since 2003 — and my great-grandfather designed it.
From Longreach in Queensland to Karratha in Western Australia, thousands flock to catch a glimpse of the art deco three-handled cup, designed by James William Steeth almost 100 years ago.
It's instantly recognisable.
But in 1919, as a humble gold and silversmith, it's unlikely James knew the impact his design would have on Australia.
Hand beating: The mark of an artist
Every year a new Melbourne Cup trophy is made and the winner's owner takes it home.
But it's always based on my great-grandfather's design — and for decades, he crafted each new trophy himself.
In those days it took between 100 and 120 hours to make a Melbourne Cup.
James was old school — shrouded in an oversized workman's coat, he used a rhinoceros hoof as a hammer to hand beat strips of gold alloy into the bowl of each Melbourne Cup he worked on.
It's a technique he later taught my grandfather, Maurice Steeth, and it meant no two cups were ever the same.
James would leave dents on the inside of the cup's bowl as a show of his workmanship, and a tiny fleur-de-lis with the initials JWS was embossed on all his designs.
The handles of the Melbourne Cup were also hand-constructed from four pieces of gold, welded together using a solid gold solder.
And the stem of the trophy was also hand-sculpted, and its base spun using hand-operated machines.
James got quite sick in his later years and eventually died of bone cancer in 1969, at 75.
But by that time, my grandfather Maurice Steeth had taken up his mantle.
The Steeth brand was well-known in those days and there are some incredible newspaper and magazine clippings from the 60s of James proudly passing the baton on to Maurice.
Australian horse race historian Andrew Lemon says James was an anxious father, never quite sure that Maurice was on top of it as he was.
"It was always a challenge for him to make sure the handles were going to fit into the bowl as beautifully as possible," Dr Lemon says.
"So every now and then you'll find in these books little notes to Maurice saying, 'Not bad Maurice, you know… OK…'"
A contemporary design
Before James and Maurice, the Melbourne Cup wasn't always a trophy. It took on many different ornate shapes and designs, including a gold watch and an elaborate silver bowl. They were all very ornate Victorian constructions, and mostly the work of craftsmen in England.
But WWI was the trigger for the Victorian Racing Club (VRC) to look for a local craftsman, as importing silverware from England had become risky and unpredictable.
There was a lot of pressure to get the design right, according to Joe McGrath, the VRC's keeper of the cup.
"But I don't think people realised what it was until some time down the track," he says.
Today many people admire the simplicity and elegance of the art deco trophy my great-grandfather designed, including Helen Walpole from the National Sports Museum in Melbourne.
"Its simplicity is perhaps what gave it that edge," she says.
The three handles of the cup look much like the profile of an angular butterfly, resting on the periphery of a fish bowl — and the slender stem almost melts down in gold ripples to the base of the trophy.
"Simple, a bowl, handles, a cup — it's a beautiful thing," Ms Walpole says.
But in its time, at the dawn of the art deco era, it was considered very modern — perhaps too modern for some.
"Some people thought it didn't really look like a Melbourne Cup — it should be much more ornate," Dr Lemon says.
Premature death and a family legacy lost
My father, Michael Steeth, was a teenager when he helped make the 1969 Melbourne Cup with his father, Maurice.
It's a memory he's pretty chuffed to look back on, but he says it was tough-going work.
"Harder, son, hit the thing harder," Maurice would instruct him, as he beat the bowl of the cup into shape.
Today Dad keeps a replica 1965 Melbourne Cup, made by his own father, almost hidden on the bottom shelf in a wooden cabinet in his lounge room.
When I ask if he often admires it, Dad says no and tears up a little.
My dad didn't become the third generation in his family to make the Melbourne Cup.
Maurice died suddenly at 55, of a heart attack in his lounge room chair, when dad was 15.
So for my dad, his family legacy evokes a deep sense of pride, but also a big loss.
"I became an accountant, I didn't become a gold and silversmith — I didn't have quite the same talent," he says.
The Melbourne Cup had been made by the Steeth family for 51 years when Maurice died.
I press my father on whether he would have liked to become a gold and silversmith, and he replies: "I would have liked to have tried."
While you can see the pain on my father's face, he still has many childhood memories that tie him to his family's workshop.
Each year the workshop would yield about 120 ounces of gold off the floor, and it was Dad's responsibility to sweep it.
"In gold and silversmithing places, you never throw out the dust that's on the floor," he says.
Lucky Rocca: The talented teenage protégé
Although my father didn't become the next Steeth to make the Melbourne Cup, Maurice's legacy of craftsmanship was still passed on.
When Maurice died, Fortunato 'Lucky' Rocca was 22 years old — seven years older than my dad.
He'd been an apprentice in my grandfather's workshop since he was 17.
"We went for an excursion to the Steeths, the teacher took us out there to show us metal works," he says.
"I just liked the feel of the place."
Lucky made the Melbourne Cup for three decades, until he lost the contract in 2001.
"Life goes on — I hated it, but you get on with life," he says, from his Carlton workshop, a reminder of the bygone inner-city industrial Melbourne era.
Mr McGrath says he was not privy to the VRC decision-making process that took the contract away from Lucky.
But he says from a business standpoint, it made sense for a number of people to know how to make the cup.
"I think that any organisation that relies on one person is probably putting themselves in the corner," he says.
"You do need to have some flexibility, a plan B."
Production of the cup today
For most of the 21st century, only three men made the Melbourne Cup: James, Maurice and Lucky.
Today it's produced by ABC Bullion, a large precious metals dealer and refiner.
It now takes 300 hours to make, and Lucky says it seems to be produced quite differently to the traditional Steeth and Rocca technique.
And when I approach ABC Bullion, to find out more — they point me toward a promotional video.
"It's not the Melbourne Cup that I knew," Lucky says, after watching the video.
What gets Lucky is that the bowl is no longer hand-beaten, making it "less of an individual piece", along with the fact that multiple people work on one trophy.
When I ask Lucky if the artistry and workmanship is getting lost today, he says: "Of course it is."
But ABC Bullion says making the cup is a source of pride for the company and that they go to great lengths to ensure they are meeting the VCR's exacting specifications.
"[We] love that we are part of Australia's iconic racing history," marketing manager Nicola Evans says.
"We ensure that we keep to the original design set by the VRC and stay within the millimetre tolerances [the club] set."
The VRC defends the cup's evolving design, pointing out that no cup was ever the same and that "protocols and procedures" are in place to ensure consistency.
Even Lucky admits this evolution is inevitable. "You can't stop it," he says.
Topics: horse-racing, sport, gambling, history, community-and-society, industrial-design, design, flemington-3031, vic, australia
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