Let’s just assume for a minute that the 2013 All-Aged Stakes is a two horse affair. Sure Rain Affair, Epaulette and even old Rangirangdoo have a big chance in the race, but for the sake of this exercise, the race is between More Joyous and All Too Hard.
All To Hard has beaten Pierro and Pierro has beaten More Joyous, so All Too Hard wins right? Wrong! But that is how I do my footy tips every week. The truth is that All Too Hard has only ever won one race in Sydney and on that day he beat Narcissus by one length and that horse has only ever won a Wyong maiden. But All Too Hard is a gun; he has beaten Pierro at set weights, he has beaten all but one home in a Cox Plate and he beat all but Pierro this trip and track last time he was here. He has won two Group Ones with his last two starts and at his last start, the 1400m Futurity he beat King Mufhasa who has since ran second to Pierro.
This colt has unfortunately got a very famous half-sister and as such he will always be in her shadow. But looking through his record for his entire career, he has only had three bad runs and that is why he will be very hard to beat come Saturday. Yet, all three of these bad runs have been in Sydney. This race is in Sydney and that is why the mare is the pick.
More Joyous’ record reads like this 32 starts for 21 wins. Her 11 loses have been; a slaughter job by the rider last start, a second to Pierro at Weight for Age, a Toorak Handicap with 60kg giving Solzenitsyn 8kg, a Myer Classic where even Gai thought she was done and needed a spell or retirement, a first up sprint race to Sepoy, 2 heavy track defeats, one lose in a mares race, two Cox Plates, one of which she was clearly the best run in the race and once where she bucked off the jockey as a two-year-old.
Now it might be a little bit of blind loyalty that is guiding this opinion, but at 1400m under WFA More Joyous looks the stand out pick in this field. She has had no luck this time in and on a dry track at a distance that she has never been beaten at, she should at least run well and all things being equal, she should hold out All Too Hard.
4th. Dead-heat between Rain Affair and Epaulette.
3rd. Rangirangdoo
2nd. All Too Hard
1st. More Joyous. See if the odds for the Stradbroke are up and maybe have $5 each way on the great mare in that race too.
By Zeb Armstrong
