If you happen to be up at 4:00 am this coming morning, you could actually watch The Melbourne Cup. Give it another 24 hours and you could watch the USA election. Several sleepless hours after that, the Breeders Cup Classic will be on around 00:30.
Let’s face it, not much will be happening here, so you might as well make the effort. However, if you need some encouragement, I am reliably informed by my Aboriginal correspondent that the following insights are pretty much on the button.
The answer to the question, how many Australian men does it take to change a light bulb is None. Because in Oz, it’s a woman’s job. And in case you were wondering, the difference between an Australian wedding and an Australian funeral is that there is one less drunk at the funeral. The Aussies keep their culture in a yoghurt pot in the fridge and the following is allegedly a totally true story. A Kiwi and an Aussie are fishing one afternoon and have a couple of cold beers. After a while, the Aussie says to the Kiwi, “If I was to sneak over to your house and made wild passionate love to your wife while you were at work, and she got pregnant and had a baby, would that make us related?” The Kiwi after a great deal of thought, says, “I don’t know about related, but it sure would make us even.”
Fair enough. Time for a cold tinny and a glance at the card.
The stripper stats that whittle the field down are:
- 16/16 – Had won a Group class race before
- 14/16 – Had raced within the last 4 weeks
- 14/16 – Raced at either Geelong (2), Flemington (3), Caulfield (4) or Moon Valley (5) last time
- 14/16 – Winners from stall 5 or higher
- 11/16 – Placed in the top 3 last time out
If I’m being generous, I’m left with six and they are VERRY ELLEEGANT – THE CHOSEN ONE – SIR DRAGONET – MIAMI BOUND – FINCHE – ETAH JAMES.
SIR DRAGONET has the advantage of winning the Cox Plate, always a great MC prep race, my fear is the ground. VERRY ELLEEGANT won the Caulfield Cup, but her penalty is so slight she has a huge weight advantage over Sir Anthony Van Dyke. Again I fear, the ground and would have loved it to rain. The key is to keep her covered up and not to let her have her head. FINCHE was 4th in this in 2018, and he has had a good prep season. He wasn’t far off VERRY ELLEEGANT in the G1 Turnbull Stakes two races ago and was 5th in the Caulfield Cup after a bit of argy bargy. He’s got a decent weight, he’s honest and he has a decent draw. THE CHOSEN ONE has a split personality. If The Chosen One turns up he is in with a really decent shout. If the I Have Chosen Not To turns up, forget it. That’s reflected in his price – but if you can get six places that would be a decent possey. ETAH JAMES won the Sydney Cup back in April after a horror of a race in terms of barging, in which she came off best. She was a decent 4th LTO, but probably needs it wet. Finally MIAMI BOUND comes into the reckoning on her G2 Moonee Valley Cup win LTO where she demolished the field.
SIR DRAGONET e/w – VERRY ELLEEGANT e/w – FINCHE e/w