Chris Waller’s Asterix was scratched by stewards on the morning of Tuesday’s Melbourne Cup.

The gelding was withdrawn and the master trainer fined $50,000 because the galloper was given treatment on race day - which is against the rules of racing.

SENTrack & RSN’s Gareth Hall shed some further light on the scratching of Asterix who was treated by a Waller staff member on race morning which led to the withdrawal of the longshot.

“This is what's happened - every morning these horses get looked after and they get looked after better than basically the staff look after themselves,” Hall said on SEN Summer Run.

“And Chris Waller is a wonderful trainer and he's a great system trainer and he doesn't make mistakes like what happened there yesterday. So it's an honest mistake from one of his staff members.

“She's gone into the box there of Asterix and he gets treated with Penetrene, which is a Deep Heat when you're playing football just to rub on his legs. It's not a performance enhancing product, but you're not allowed to treat horses on race day.

“So as soon as the stewards understood this horse had been treated on race day, they have to scratch him under the rules of racing. They had no other choice.

“But it was an honest mistake by Chris Waller's staff member. Now, Chris is responsible for all of his horses, any staff members. You've got to feel for that person as well, they've made an honest mistake and they would be hurting more than anyone.

“It’s up to Chris Waller to make sure his staff members know that you can't do that. So I feel for the staff member that made that mistake, they didn't deliberately do that…”

Hall admits it would have been a very tough phone call to tell the owners that their horse had been scratched on Cup morning. The ownership group includes former New Zealand cricketer Mark Greatbatch and a Kiwi cohort.

“It would have been a terrible phone call, if you own that horse and you had a Melbourne Cup runner and it was the dream to get a horse into the Melbourne Cup, it is heartbreaking,” he added.

“The owners are from New Zealand, so that would have been difficult for Chris Waller.

“He was fined $50,000. I reckon he would have been angry and frustrated and embarrassed in a way. But I reckon he's such a great trainer. He would have obviously felt for his staff member, who would be hurting, who made that mistake. Obviously, he wouldn’t have been happy.

“There's that human element to it as well. So, it was just a mistake.”

In the end Waller had just one runner in the Cup - Soul Of Spain - who ran 13th.

The 2026 Melbourne Cup was won by Point Of Law, trained by Ciaron Maher and ridden by Ethan Brown.