History says being last year’s runner-up is more of an impediment to Moment of Change’s chances in Saturday’s $1 million Group 1 Lexus Newmarket Handicap than the fact he is the 58kg top weight.
Horses carrying the No 1 saddlecloth to victory in the 1200-metre event up the famed Flemington straight has become commonplace in recent years.
Four of the past eight winners of Australia’s premier sprinting handicap were top weight, or joint-top weight as Scenic Blast was (with Swick) when he won with 57kg in 2009.
Three years earlier Takeover Target carried the same weight to victory, while Black Caviar (58kg) and Hay List (58.5kg) set metric weight-carrying records for their gender with their wins in 2011 and 2012.
Returning to win the Newmarket 12 months after running second has proven a much tougher assignment. Maybe Mahal – 36 years ago – is the most recent of the six Newmarket winners who had finished second a year earlier.
Admittedly, it hasn’t been attempted since 2003, when 2002 runner-up North Boy finished 12th, but six of the previous 10 also had a crack at it and none placed.
Black Bean (2001) and Catalan Opening (1998) fared best, finishing fifth the year after filling second spot, while Dantelah (2000) finished sixth, Storaia seventh (1993), Toledo 10th (1999) and Show A Heart 11th (2002).
Toledo did win a Newmarket Handicap after finishing second, but it was three years later, and he remains the only horse since Maybe Mahal to win a Newmarket having placed in an earlier edition.
Past winners have not made a habit of celebrating victory again either, which Shamexpress is out to achieve this year. In the history of the race first run in 1874, only four horses have gone back-to-back with Razor Sharp – the 1982/83 winner – the most recent.
Shamexpress will carry 56kg this weekend, having won with 51.5kg last year. The Danny O’Brien-trained speedster defied the recent trend when he became a lightly-weighted winner.
Only two others have won with less than 55kg in the past 10 years; Wanted (51.5kg in 2010) and Alinghi (53.5kg in 2005).
That trio all won as a three-year-old and Exceed And Excel (55kg in 2004) and Weekend Hussler (56kg in 2008) are other winners from that age group in what has been a stellar decade for sprinting youngsters.
Bernabeu and Va Pensiero, who each have 50kg, are the three-year-olds engaged this year.
Weekend Hussler is the only Newmarket winner since 2005 who did not run in the Black Caviar Lightning and the past three winners all headed straight to the Newmarket after the Lightning.
Shamexpress, Samaready, Unpretentious and Bernabeu are those who have headed straight to the Newmarket out of the Lightning this year.
Shamexpress, who won at $15, became the longest-priced winner since Rubitano ($17, 2002) but upset results have been the exception rather than the rule of late with six of the past 10 winners starting favourite.
Damien Oliver will create history if he does win aboard Shamexpress, set to claim outright the record for the most numbers of wins in the race. A three-time winner, he currently shares the record with Harold Badger, Athol Mulley and Harry White.
Oliver is yet to win the day’s other $1 million Group 1, though, the Darley Australian Cup. He gets perhaps his best chance yet to win the 2000-metre weight-for-age event aboard favourite Fiorente.
The Australian Cup has not been a great race for favourites recently, though, with Lonhro ($2 in 2004) the most recent to score.
Only two of the past nine winners have started longer than $8.50, however; Roman Arch ($51, 2006) and Niconero ($13, 2009).
Melbourne Cup winners haven’t made a habit of completing the double, especially male ones. Green Moon last year became the eighth defending Melbourne Cup champion to run in the Victoria Racing Club’s other feature Cup since the Australian Cup became weight-for-age event in 1979 and was the fourth to miss a top-three finish.
The only two to complete the double in the same season are champion mares Let’s Elope (1992) and Makybe Diva (2005).
Saintly won the Australian Cup as a three-year-old before his Melbourne Cup success, while Hyperno and Shocking both won the Australian Cup the season after their victory in the big two-miler. Green Moon is looking to emulate them this year.
Saintly is one of only three three-year-olds to win the Australian Cup at WFA, following Dulcify (1979) and preceding Super Cool, who won last year’s edition.
Shamus Award is out to emulate them this year and he is striving to become not only the first youngster to complete the Australian Guineas-Australian Cup double, but the first three-year-old to win the Cox Plate and Australian Cup in the same season.
None of the other three-year-olds to win the Cox Plate have attempted it, while Bonecrusher, Better Loosen Up, Dane Ripper and Northerly are the “older” horses to complete the Cox Plate-Australian Cup double.
Northerly (2nd in 2002) and Our Poetic Prince (3rd in 1989) are the only other Cox Plate winners to have contested the Australian Cup in the same season.
Fiorente and Green Moon both go into the race with the benefit of just one lead-up run and since Better Loosen Up won the Australian Cup off that preparation in 1991 only Zipping (2010) has won it second-up.
The Melbourne Cup winners both resumed in the Peter Young Stakes, which Form Focus reveals is the most prolific producer of Australian Cup winners with 17 of the past 26 having taken in the 1800m Group 2 race at Caulfield.
Mourayan, Foreteller, Star Rolling and Let’s Make Adeal also enter the race off the Peter Young Stakes.
Irish mare Voleuse de Coeurs, now in the care of Mike Moroney, goes into the race first-up since last year’s Melbourne Cup, however, and she will become the first horse to win the race at her first run back from a spell if successful.
– Racing Victoria
