Knight’s Choice has won the 2024 Melbourne Cup, defeating Warp Speed and Okita Soushi in a thrilling finish at Flemington on Tuesday afternoon.

The massive outsider saluted for Irish-born jockey Robbie Dolan, who claimed victory in what was his first ever ride in the “race that stops a nation”.

In what was a gripping 164th staging of Australia’s most-watched thoroughbred race, Knight’s Choice proved too strong in a sprint to the finish, pulling over the top of Okita Soushi and holding off Warp Speed by the barest of margins.

Trained by John Symons and Sheila Laxon on the Sunshine Coast, Knight’s Choice was well down the betting across all markets. It was Laxon’s second Melbourne Cup triumph after she trained Ethereal to victory 23 years ago.

“This is the pinnacle of all pinnacles, this is the Melbourne Cup,” Symons said.

Zardozi rounded out the first four.

As the field approached the final few hundred metres it appeared as though Jamie Kah, aboard Okita Soushi, would become just the second woman to ride the winner in the Melbourne Cup. But Okita Soushi was swallowed up as the winning post neared, with Knight’s Choice beating Warp Speed to the line after a peach of a ride from Dolan.

“We’ll be singing tonight after a few beers,” Dolan, who was a contestant on the 2022 edition of “The Voice”, told Channel 9.

“It is amazing and a lot of people doubted this little horse. Doubt me now.”

Laxon was more than happy with the ride, with Dolan threading his way through the field from near last on the bend.

“He started the race, and he knew how to ride him. We didn’t give him instructions, he knew what to do,” she said.

“I love it being down for the Australians. The Australian horse has done it, and Robbie is Australian now as well, so I’m thrilled to win the Cup, and it is the people’s Cup, and that’s what it is all about.”

Knight’s Choice is just the sixth Australian-bred horse to win since 1993, and the first since Vow and Declare back in 2019.

The five-year-old gelding carried only 51kg to victory and was making its first start over the 3200m trip. It had most recently come off a fifth-placed finish in the Bendigo Cup, but had showed sparing little form this preparation otherwise.

“I watched every Melbourne Cup for the last 40 years. I thought my best chance was to get him to stay the trip and, hopefully, he can run home and do the quick sectionals he can on a good track and he proved everybody wrong,” Dolan said.

Thirteen free agents received qualifying offers from their former teams Monday before free agency officially began at 5 p.m. E.T., sources told ESPN’s Jeff Passan. Among those tendered the offer, which is a one-year, $21.05 million contract for the 2025 season:

The players have until 4 p.m. ET on Nov. 19 to decide whether to accept the offer, which is calculated annually based on the mean average annual value of Major League Baseball’s 125 biggest contracts.

The most sought-after free agents have historically rejected the proposal to enter free agency in search of a multiyear contract. Just 13 of 131 players have accepted a qualifying offer since it was introduced following the 2012 season. Last year, all seven players presented the deal, valued at $20.325 million, turned it down.

Clubs can give a player a qualifying offer only if the player was with the team continuously from opening day and has never received a qualifying offer before.

Dodgers right-hander Walker Buehler, San Diego Padres outfielder Jurickson Profar, and Yankees second baseman Gleyber Torres were among the free agents not extended the qualifying offer.

Teams that lose a player who received a qualifying offer receive a compensation pick. Clubs that sign players who rejected the qualifying offer before the amateur draft the following year must surrender draft compensation and could also lose international bonus pool money. The possible penalties have not affected top-tier free agents’ earning potential, but they have hampered the market for midtier players.

Teams that surpassed the competitive balance tax line in 2024 and sign a player tied to a qualifying offer stand to lose their second- and fifth-highest picks in the upcoming amateur draft. They also lose $1 million from their international bonus pool. Revenue-sharing organizations lose their third-highest draft selection. The others lose their second-highest draft pick and $500,000 from their international bonus pool.

Right-hander Gerrit Cole decided Monday to remain with the New York Yankees on the four-year, $144 million contract he opted out of Saturday, the team confirmed late in the day.

Originally, the only way Cole would remain a Yankee without reaching free agency was if the club voided his opt-out with a one-year, $36 million extension to his contract, making it a five-year, $180 million deal. The Yankees declined to do so, however, but they came to an agreement for Cole to remain in New York anyway, as if he had not triggered the opt-out in the first place.

“It was something at the moment we weren’t necessarily comfortable doing, but we wanted our player and our ace back, and he certainly didn’t want to go either at the same time,” Yankees GM Brian Cashman said at the general managers meetings in Texas on Monday. “And so we had a lot of healthy dialogue about trying to just thread the needle and just keep it in play.”

The two sides originally had until Sunday to decide Cole’s fate, but they extended the deadline to Monday at 5 p.m. ET because the conversations were ongoing. Though the Yankees would love to have Cole finish his career in New York, Cashman indicated there are no current discussions on a potential contract extension, citing the timing of the end of the World Series as having played a part in the saga.

“Was a 48-hour window, very small,” Cashman said. “It feels like he legitimately just got off the mound and we were in our discussions. We were wrestling with it [the decision] and sharing that [with Cole]. And at the same time, there is an opportunity that arose that Gerrit didn’t want to go anywhere either.”

Cashman was asked if the team had won a game of chicken with Cole and his representatives.

“No, I don’t look at it as anything other than more conversations we’re having after the opt-out than probably should have happened before the opt-out,” he answered. “And so I think it’s easier to try to understand and find common ground with each other when you’re having the conversations versus a contractual right you exercise and now the other side has to do things instead.”

In other words, the Yankees didn’t feel comfortable with making a fast decision right after the World Series and were ready to let Cole walk but instead offered to kick the discussions down the road.

Cashman had a layover in Charlotte on the way to San Antonio on Monday afternoon, realizing then that the sides were in a good place.

“It felt like we were going to be in a safe harbor where we were both willing to move forward with the four years that was in play and continue obviously to have conversations,” Cashman said. “But there’s no pressure point with any conversations. We’re always open to talk about future years, but right now we don’t have to because it’s a four-year locked-in commitment, and it’s on to our next focus.”

A six-time All-Star, the 34-year-old Cole fulfilled his boyhood dream of joining the Yankees before the COVID-shortened 2020 season on what was, at the time, the largest contract ever given to a pitcher: nine years, $324 million. He became the workhorse ace New York envisioned, posting a 3.08 ERA in 108 starts over the next four seasons, and peaked in 2023, when he went 15-4 with a 2.63 ERA across 209 innings in 33 starts to win his first Cy Young Award. A repeat performance, however, was doomed from the start.

Cole was shut down in mid-March with nerve irritation and edema in his throwing elbow. He avoided surgery but began the season on the injured list. He made three rehab starts before making his season debut June 19 against the Baltimore Orioles. Initially not built up to his usual pitch count, Cole didn’t record an out in the sixth inning in his first four outings.

But the Yankees’ measured plan for Cole paid dividends. The right-hander ultimately logged at least six innings in eight of his 17 starts, posting a 3.41 ERA across 95 innings. He had his occasional blow-up — he surrendered 11 runs in two starts against the Boston Red Sox and 12 runs to the New York Mets in two outings — but was otherwise stingy, allowing two or fewer runs in 10 of his starts. He delivered his best performance in Oakland, holding the A’s to one run over nine innings Sept. 20.

Cole added another five starts in the postseason, pitching to a 2.17 ERA over 29 innings. He limited the Kansas City Royals to one run in seven innings in the Yankees’ American League Division Series-clinching Game 4 win. The Dodgers mustered just one run in six innings against him in Game 1 of the World Series, although the Yankees lost in extra innings.

His final start of the season in Game 5, however, will haunt the Yankees: After four hitless innings, three Yankees defensive miscues in the fifth — including Cole not covering first base on a routine ground ball to first baseman Anthony Rizzo with two outs — allowed the Dodgers to tie the score with five unearned runs in their eventual 7-6 win.

The Pittsburgh Pirates drafted Cole with the No. 1 pick in the 2011 draft out of UCLA. He made his major league debut in 2013 and made one All-Star team for Pittsburgh. It wasn’t until he was traded to the Houston Astros after the 2017 season that he became a consistent ace, recording two 200-plus-inning seasons with a 2.68 ERA before hitting free agency and signing with the Yankees in December 2019.

“I think he’s happy where he’s at,” Cashman said. “I think he likes our setup. I think he likes playing for who he’s playing for and working for. And I think he likes his teammates, and I think he thinks we have a legitimate chance to win. And sometimes the grass isn’t always greener, and so that goes for us, too. I know we’d prefer not to be trying to look to how we’re going to replace our ace.”