Weekend Wisdom 14th Feb 2016

Dissecting the Pin-Up

Expectations were high, but Betfair layers were plentiful at post time in the Apollo Stakes on Saturday. Ninety seconds later, racing's glamour girl had duly returned with a win. Winx was afforded clear running throughout, won with sufficient comfort and her times, overall and sectional, were solid. Nonetheless, there was hidden merit in her victory.

Put simply, barrier one was the most unfavourable alley on the programme. Drawing the inside was a passport to a rear half finish, whilst six of the nine winners drew in the outside three gates. The running rail was fixed at 3 metres, too close to the true position to even the playing field as the best ground is typically 8 metres out. The prevailing north easterly wind, blowing at a significant 33 km/h and gusting up to 44km/h, harnessed the vast expanses of the racecourse precinct to slam those runners on the inside down the side and turning for home thereby advantaging those with cover on their outside.

Some may argue that Winx's inside draw enabled her to settle closer in the run and assist her victory, however, I maintain that Winx prevailed under adverse circumstances, elevating the win in my opinion.

Away-form Favourites

Saturday’s card at Randwick was notable for the rank failure of two Victorians who started well backed favourites in their respective events. Stay With Me ($2.60) and Duibio ($3.30) reprised Hasselhoof’s ($2.05) plain performance of last week.

The assertion that Stay With Me enjoyed a class edge over her rivals because her resume contains a Thousand Guineas win seems facile in my opinion. Success in age-restricted principal events often carries a hollow ring especially when coupled with a sex restriction, and is more a function of time and place than quality. The trenchant resistance to Pride of Dubai in Eskimo Prince betting last week was testament to this phenomenon. Bluntly, this dual 2yo group one winner’s form had “no guts”!

Aside from this analysis, the fact remained that the aforementioned shippers had no recent local runs to justify their favouritism. I am often accused of unfairly dismissing Melbourne form but the following rationale withstands exceptions; elite athletes require elite competition to heighten their performance, or, put another way; the best way to play well in first grade is to play in first grade whereas good form in reserve grade is not the best way to achieve high performance in first grade. I’m an admirer of Melbourne’s racing product but it remains reserve grade to Sydney’s first grade. Sydney has the harbour and its horses, Melbourne has the rest.

Highway to the Highway

The finish photo in Saturday’s 1800m Highway Race crammed seven horses within a length of the winner. Considering such a blanket finish, how can it be that the three placegetters who thrust themselves to the front of the pack possessed form attributes shared with only one other runner?

The answer, in my book, is a corollary of the preceding analysis. Highway races are contests carrying Metropolitan Midweek prizemoney restricted to country trained horses. This renders them a provincial standard event, making provincial runs the minimum form requirement. Only four contestants in Saturday’s slog had two recent runs of at least provincial standard, and this level of competitiveness counted for everything in the grind to the finish. The run to the winning post often provides a visual illusion that any result is possible, but, for reasons that I’ll expand on at a later date, the horses that stretch their neck at the finish are, in my opinion, not randomly determined.

Will we ever learn?

The horse racing phenomenon that is Chris Waller Racing Stables routinely attracts much media attention across the spectrum of the sport. When the Waller-trained pair of Springbok Flyer and Defrost My Heart settled down to battle out the finish of Saturday’s mile-and-a-half staying test I had pause for thought. Does the fact of the Waller juggernaut cause me to lose focus on the obvious?

Waller’s fame rests on his ability to churn out lots of winners, but one of the hallmarks of his rise to prominence was his virtual throttlehold on Sydney’s middle distance events. He began purchasing tried European stayers in large numbers and imbued them with his painstaking “attention-to-detail” approach. Amazingly he has encountered limited opposition from the other leading yards, Snowden, O’Shea, and Gai have a minor presence beyond 1600m in the everyday events.

Of the 21 distance races conducted in the Metropolitan area this year, Waller-trained horses have won 10, few at cramped odds. The list reads; Vilanova $11, Loophole $13, Ashkannd $2.6, Trafalgar $2.9, Loophole $4, Chandana $2, Springbok Flyer $4.4, Ashkannd $3.5, Loving Home $8.5, Springbok Flyer $9. At the true staying distance of 2200m plus his record is 5 from 7.

The above speaks for itself. Waller stayers are perfectly trained and perfectly ridden. Oppose them at your peril.