After a horror spring carnival, the little Melbourne Cup sitting in front of him allowed the trainer to forget the downs.

"Good things happen in racing, bad things happen," Kavanagh said.

"You can win races, you can have no luck."

He's had plenty of both.

In the last few weeks alone, Kavanagh's 2008 Cox Plate winner Maldivian and stablemate Cats Whisker both suffered spring carnival-ending injuries, this year's raging Cox Plate favourite Whobegotyou missed out on a place and Victoria Derby favourite Shamoline Warrior was scratched on race morning.

But yesterday, the swings and roundabouts swung and turned his way when Shocking claimed a stunning Melbourne Cup win for him, novice owner Laurence Eales and jockey Corey Brown.

"It's not about how many times times you're knocked down, it's about how you get up," Kavanagh said.

The former jumps jockey's journey as a trainer took its biggest turn when he made the risky move three years ago from Adelaide to Flemington where he had one horse - Maldivian - in a block of 26 stables for which he had to pay full rent.

He won a few races, took on a few more horses and then came his big break in the most unlikely guise.

While horse flu was a curse on racing in 2007, the Equine Influenza (EI) outbreak provided Kavanagh, 52, with the lucky break on which he capitalised.

In what was virtually a closed carnival with most interstate horses locked out, Devil Moon, Divine Madonna and Maldivian all gave him Group One wins that spring.

"You have good luck, bad luck, EI - it set us up," he said as the emotion began to spill out.

When asked at his post race press conference how he felt after the journey arrived at a Melbourne Cup, he gave a simple reply: "I think you can tell that."

Everyone in the room could.

Last Saturday he said he'd had enough after Shamoline Warrior's high temperature forced him out of the Victoria Derby, but Shocking's win that day in the Lexus Stakes kept his hopes up.

"At the end of the day, it's pretty tough, you've got to keep getting up, keep going to the races, keep focussed," he said.

"I was pretty disappointed about Saturday, but it's carnival time, you've got a horse you think can win the Melbourne Cup, you've got to keep going.

"It hasn't hit me, I've won a Melbourne Cup. It's every trainer's dream."