Racehorse TALK

1-AMERICAIN
2-MOURAYAN
3-MANIGHAR
4-LAMASERY
5-SAPTAPADI

Never realised the entry conditions specified that only horses with one word names of 8 or 9 letters were allowed to race......

Will be good to see a European style WFA distance race run in Australia.

The problem with the field is the absurd programming, there is an 1800m open class race a 2400m wfa race and a 2 mile handicap on the same program. If you only had the 2400m race there would have been a full field as some of the 1800m horses would have stepped up and a couple of the 2 mile horses would have raced in this.

If more days had programming like this we would have full fields in each.

The spread of distances would be fine if we had a more balanced racing stock.

Thats right Calgary, but when a day like tomorrow is programmed differently to the rest of the year on the back of the Queen Elizabeth 7 days earlier we end up with  a poor listed race,  a dreadful WFA and an awful jumpers flat 2 mile race because there isnt enough stayers to go round.

I think the Classic is perfectly fine.

The 2 miler is a joke.

The $1.50 amost looks overs, although the same could be said of the $2.30 about Bauer last week, surely this week though the track will suit. Manighar for second.

Americain is a proven winner though.

Even without the Eclipse on this program, I can only find 3 horses from that who may, and only may, run in the classic.  The top 2 and Erewhon.  The Sandown Cup fulfilled it's role in providing another staying option for the horses below Cup class, either not quite good enough or on the up.  To me, the race that should disappear (or be moved back to the Autumn for Melbourne horses heading to Sydney Cup) is the Queen Elizabeth.  Maybe this meeting could be split into two with the Cup, Eclipse, Merson Cooper and maybe even the Guineas on Lakeside next week, but I doubt that would effect the makeup of the Classic.

Brilliant race though, who needs big fields to give us a great contest?

Further to my thoughts above, at this time of year horses are really racing at their right distance, so there is no need to worry about a 3200, a 2400 and an 1800 meter race all on the same program.  I mentioned the top two in the Eclipse before, well they have had every chance to go 2400 over the last 5 weeks, the fact that they didn't suggests that they simply wouldn't have run on this program if the Eclipse wasn't run.