This race will have perhaps a better than a Cox Plate field all competing for the richest WFA prize in Australia. The race is on a big track and will have a capacity field. Every good miler, middle distance horse and stayer in Australia will most probably be aimed at this race and it is sure to be a cracker. So we all know that early markets are poison, but if you had to have a bet right now on this race… who would you back?
It’s a Dundeel is currently the favourite and he is the obvious choice at this stage. He has won two Group One races over the 2000m at Randwick and this will likely be his last start.
Guelph might be good enough as she will have no weight in this race and she looks as if she will love the 2000m. However it is rare that fillies win races like this.
Fiorente will be aimed at this race and if he is fit he will be running in this race. He can of course win and will be very much fancied on the day. You can get $9 right now about Fiorente in this race before nominations have even been taken.
Boban has never seen the 2000m and surely he will be much better suited in the Doncaster. He will have plenty of weight in that race but he still will be very hard to beat.
Hawkpur and Toydini are both great horses but are they maybe just a class below a few of the top horses?
Carlton House beat a horse named Reliable Man effortlessly at Royal Ascot two years ago.
Another horse named So You Think beat Carlton House effortlessly in that race to win the race. Reliable Man beat It’s a Dundeel in last year’s Queen Elizabeth so surely Carlton House can win the race this year!
Shamus Award beat Fiorente in the Cox Plate so perhaps he can do it again come April.
Happy Trails will be thereabout… there is no doubt about that.
Then there are the numerous Waterhouse and Waller runners that are currently going through their grades, plus the Snowden runners who competed well as three-year-olds in the spring and will no doubt comeback bigger and better.
This race is over three months away and before nominations have even been taken. It’s a Dundeel is $4.50. With most of the best horses in Australia set to fill the gates in this race it is hard to see It’s A Dundeel being any shorter than $4.50 on race day. He started $4.50 in the Cox Plate after beating Atlantic Jewel at his previous start!
This is sure to be the race of the carnival and it will be $5 the field in this writers humble opinion. The race has been won by the likes of Tulloch (three times), Rough Habit, Jeune, Doriemus, Might And Power (by ten lengths), Grand Armee, Desert War and More Joyous; therefore the race deserves to be a feature of the carnival. If you listen closely in the racing media, everyday a new horse is touted as a possible Queen Elizabeth runner. The STC is going to have their work cut out in determining which horses make the field because it sounds like there could be as many as 30 acceptors on the day.
Whatever the result, the carnival needed a revamp and it a very exciting time for racing in Sydney.
By Zeb Armstrong
