Autumn Glow Wins Champions Mile as Camera Switch Sparks Uproar
Autumn Glow won the $3 million Champions Mile at Flemington, but a late switch in TV camera angles angered racing analysts and fans. Trainer Chris Waller now has 27 Group 1 wins in 2026, one short of a world record.
Autumn Glow won the $3 million Champions Mile at Flemington, but fans said they had never seen such a bizarre moment as the television coverage cut away just as she hit the front. The uproar has put the broadcast camera work under scrutiny again.
Trainer Chris Waller claimed two of the three Group 1 feature races on the card. Birdman turned the tables on Cosmic Crusader in the Champions Stakes before Autumn Glow saluted in the Champions Mile.
The camera switch
Autumn Glow had only just hit the front near the 200m mark when the coverage changed from a side-on view to a front-on shot. Viewers could not see where she was in relation to Lindermann.
When the picture returned to side-on a few seconds later, Autumn Glow was a length clear. She went on to win comfortably.
Racing analyst David Pfundt was among those left furious. He wrote on social media that the "head-on camera angle inside the last 200m was just atrocious!"
Broadcaster Trav Noonan of SEN and RSN said the angle was also "terribly shot…out of focus and wide as". He said the Racing Production team for RV do a great job all year but are "shelved during Cup week and have no input into how races are cut".
Another viewer asked: "Why in gods name would you change the camera angle when it hits the front????" A further post read: "I've never seen that ever in racing."
The camera work during the Melbourne Cup also drew complaints, especially when Royal Supremacy surged out to a huge early lead.
Waller closes on a record
The win gave Waller four of the eight Group 1 titles across the Cup carnival in Melbourne. A week earlier he completed the Victoria Derby and Empire Rose Stakes double.
He now has 27 Group 1 wins in 2026. That is one short of Aidan O'Brien's calendar-year world record of 28.
Autumn Glow has won 15 of her 16 starts. Jockey James McDonald said she needed time to find her gear. "Even when I straightened and gave her a click, she took about 50m to get going," he said. "But boy once she opened the shoulders up, she was never going to get rolled."
Waller ranked her alongside the best he has trained, including Winx. "She could beat Winx on her day and Winx could probably beat her up on Winx's best day pretty easy, in fact, especially over 2000m," he said.
