RACING Victoria’s international equine recruiting agent Leigh Jordan has been dispatched to Dublin to convince Irish training genius Aidan O’Brien to again target the Melbourne Cup.

Top Irish trainer Aidan O'Brien

O’Brien, who prepared former Australian champion So You Think to win five Group 1 races in Europe including the Prince of Wales’s Stakes at Royal Ascot last month, has not returned down under since his three stayers – Septimus (18th), Alessandro Volta (20th) and Honolulu (21st) – ran poorly behind Viewed in the 2008 Melbourne Cup.

The celebrated trainer left Melbourne with a sour taste in his mouth having been called in from the stewards to explain his horses tactics.

“I go back to Ballydoyle every year since Aidan was last in Melbourne,” Jordan told Melbourne’s Herald Sun.

“I keep knocking on his door so I hope this might be the year he does come back for the Cup.”

Jordan will visit O’Brien and other leading trainers in Ireland this week including two-time Melbourne Cup winner Dermot Weld (Vintage Crop 1993, Media Puzzle 2002), John Oxx and others to try to lure their best stayers to compete in the Melbourne Cup later this year.