It hasn’t been a favourable result for those punters who aimed to blast out on a roughie in the Zipping Classic after a trying Melbourne Cup Week.
In keeping with the trend of Sandown’s feature meeting of the Spring Carnival, the $300,000 Zipping Classic is a race that has been dominated by those towards the head of betting boards.
The longest-priced winner of the 2400-metre event in its 20 editions since becoming a weight-for-age race was Brave Chief at $12 in 2000.
The longest-priced winner since was Legible, at $8.50 in 2003, while 13 of the past 15 winners have started $5 or shorter.
A popular recent practice has been to hone in on horses coming out of the Melbourne Cup.
From 1989 to 1998, 34 horses ran in the Classic after contesting the Melbourne Cup for three wins – Sydeston (1989), Our Pompeii (1994) and Count Chivas (1995) – at a strike-rate of 8.82 per cent.
Since it became WFA, 42 Melbourne Cup horses have run in the Classic for nine wins at 21.42 per cent. The Cup has also supplied four second placegetters and eight thirds, meaning 35 per cent of the placegetters in the WFA era have been supplied by Melbourne Cup runners.
Southern France, who finished 19th in the Melbourne Cup, is the lone horse from this year’s Flemington ‘two-miler’ engaged in the Zipping Classic.
It is one of two G2s on Saturday’s card, accompanied by the $250,000 Sandown Guineas (1600m), in which the established performers have been to the fore.
In the past 30 years, 18 winners have sported saddlecloth number one, two, three or four.
Unlike the Classic, the Guineas has had its share of double-figure-odds winners in that time – seven in total – but it has also seen 12 favourites score, including six in the past 11 years.
The Carbine Club Stakes is revered as the prime lead-up race, with 11 of the past 30 having had their final lead-up run in the 1600-metre G3 on Derby Day, including seven since 2007.
Conqueror is the only runner from this year’s Carbine Club engaged in this year’s Guineas.
The two favourites at 9am Thursday – Affair To Remember ($3.20) and Pretty Brazen ($4.20) – are both striving to end a 14-year drought for fillies.
From its inception in 1957 until 1967 the Guineas was for fillies only but has since been open to the boys and hasn’t been particularly kind to the girls with Cayambe, in 2005, the most recent of the eight fillies to win since 1968.
The Verdict: As the only horse out of the Melbourne Cup, who is favourite, no reason to look beyond SOUTHERN FRANCE in the Classic, while looking away from the fillies in the Guineas, we fall to No.2 CONQUEROR given the strong Carbine Club formline.
– racing.com
