Another Melbourne Cup has been run and won on the back of a triumphant couple of battling trainers, a rarity it seems in an era of horses backed by cashed-up stables and leviathan-styled owners.

Considering a different kind of battler, 51 years have passed since a jockey controlled the narrative – not only a real batter, but from the bush no less among the back paddocks somewhere behind Cairns.

That's where Frank Reys learned how to first ride wild ponies in the scrub with his younger brothers before mastering the thoroughbreds.

Reys, the only Aboriginal rider to win a Melbourne Cup, has been etched deep into the memories that were old enough to remember the moment an adoring crowd across a packed out Flemington lawns stood and cheered him all the way, including returning to scale by doffing his hat back.

The win on Gala Supreme in a time that was comparable to 2024 winner Knight's Choice was one of the most popular in the history of the Melbourne Cup, both then and since.

"To win a Melbourne Cup is a jockey's dream," Reys told the crowd at the presentation.

"It's the greatest thing that has ever happened ever to me.

"To my wife, Noeline, children, Christoper, Debra and Shelley, this is one thing in my whole life that I have wished for."

The respect the Cup winner was granted from punters was based on his ability to garner up sympathy after battling through the previous four years.

That battled included on the first Tuesday of November over the famous 3200 metres.

The race appeared to be moving smoothly for Reys and Gala Supreme, however at the final turn two rivals overtook them from a strategic position in the seventh berth.

His hopes looked dashed in those adrenaline-filled seconds, but again moments later the jockey and horse made an unexpected comeback, breaking from the pack to the post.

"I thank my God, my prayers and my family for their encouragement," he said in the victory speech.

"I kept picking myself off the ground and hoping I would win a Melbourne Cup.

"It's something every Australian jockey dreams about – I still can't believe it."

It proved the long-held view in the industry that if punters had a few bob on a Reys' ridden horse, they got a good run for their money.

For a while, there was also another safe bet.

The lightweight jockey that was strong in the saddle was dogged with the ill-fortune of consecutive injuries that began with a smashed pelvis from a four-horse fall on a trip to Geelong in 1969.

A car accident in Melbourne three months before his famous victory in November did not stop Reys jumping out of the wreck and head straight to the Moonee Valley course to claim another of his eventual 1329 career successes in a first ride back from yet another fall.

In a rare – and what was his last – interview before his death 40 years ago this year, Reys spoke deeply about the determination he had to have his name inscribed onto a Melbourne Cup trophy after making his move from North Queensland to Melbourne via Brisbane and Sydney to make a name where it counted most.

"I retired six years ago (in 1978) now, but I reckon if I hadn't won that Cup, I'd say I be still riding now," Reys said more than a decade on.

But something didn't sit right.

Even back then in retirement, let alone racing, Reys was referred as of a Filipino background.

Never was the jockey called Aboriginal – and that was by no coincidence either.

Nor was it about fabricating a more acceptable ethnicity entirely.

It was true that Reys's father immigrated from the Philippines, who firstly was a labourer and later a cook on farms when he landed in North Queensland years before the birth of Frank, the eighth of 14 siblings, but the first of nine to his mother in her husband's second marriage.

Ann Reys was born to the Dyirbal people, belonging to one of eight tribes in their clan, while growing up on Country along the Cassowary Coast.

Only little more than a decade ago did it fully emerge publicly of Reys' Indigenous heritage, more than two decades after his death.

During his riding career, Reys was fully aware of his culture, however, he all but hid half of his ancestral roots from the racing industry and the punters under a perception it would harm his prospects.

That everyone was not ready in the 1960s and even the 70s to accept an Aboriginal jockey.

"It was different in those days – people really didn't celebrate Aboriginal culture like they do today," daughter Shelley Reys told racing.com.

"It wasn't accepted that easy in 1960 when we first came down here."

That's understandable considering the Melbourne Cup's shadowy and almost puzzling history that dates back to the 19th-century period of the sport.

Two past winning jockeys were each thought to be the initial Aboriginal riders past the post first, for a while contesting the place of Reys in Melbourne Cup history.

The first was from the inaugural 1861 Melbourne Cup race won famously by Archer from the ride of John Cutts.

That notion came from a belief that he was also one of the many Aboriginal stockman who replaced non-Indigenous men, who upped and left the areas around Nowra, walking off the land to join the goldrush of the time.

The urban legend continued for decades, though the 1876 winner, Peter St Albans, appeared to have a stronger claim to the mantle.

The youngest winner of the Cup rode Briseis, but as he was just 13, a myth grew based that jockeys would certainly not be allowed to race at that young age given their weight, and this was only further complicated over his decision to change his name from his birthname Michael Bowden, suggesting that was an indication he was really Aboriginal.

That legend, which included the owner of the stud that St Albans was employed by was also his adoptive dad, was debunked years later by a birth certificate that proved neither of St Albans' parents were Indigenous.

The murmurings has not prevented Reys' children from being filled with joy of his achievements.

Shelley tells a story of when she realised early in life that Reys was her hero from an early age.

"I remember us sitting down to the Cup on the radio, everyone was getting really excited and I am really looking around as a six-year-old thinking, 'This is a big deal, isn't it?'," she smiled.

"Him winning the Cup has certainly affected my family and certainly has affected me.

"I grew up thinking I could achieve anything in life because he did."

And Reys' youngest daughter certainly has done that.

Shelley is a story all of her own, yet she is the first to say her dad was an inspiration towards becoming a respected advocate for Indigenous peoples.

She became the inaugural chairperson of Reconciliation Australia and was a board director for the organisation across a decade, which included supporting Federal Parliament's apology to The Stolen Generations and launching RA's first Reconciliation Action Plan (RAP).

"He'd be enormously proud of Shelley and the work he's been doing because he wasn't able to speak up then – and she does, and can," mother Noeline Reys said.

"She's been doing it through her dad and I am sure if he was around today, he would just be enormously proud."

"As he said in his speech afterwards, I kept picking myself up off the ground trying to win this."