There are clearly more problems with this race  than simply upping the ratings.

Take the ex Lloyd Williams' horse Foundry for instance - he has a rating of 101, which he earned mainly by running in staying races. He hasn't raced for more than a year but is currently in 9th place.

There is no way he can be competitive in this race but because of his multitude of new owners he may yet get a start and simply by running will earn $90 000.

Another problem is the bribery - sorry marketing which has Man of His Word in 6th place. No one should be allowed to offer any financial inducement to get horses into the race.

And then I come back to Balf's Choice - now thank goodness in 12th place. Has anyone explained how he achieved 2 000 votes in 24 hours last week?

Well here's another problem with the race. Greg Carpenter says they have identified 2 500 invalid votes but it does not compromise the first 20 horses. Surely he must realise that if those votes were on the any of the first 10 horses at least another 5 000 votes were made on those horses.

Why? Because countless people are voting for horses in the top 10 so they can have a free trip to Melbourne.

I know it is too late now but surely those 2500 votes should be removed now - not after voting has closed.

Wily, I have no doubt they are going to do that. However Glen Carpenter has been quoted as saying he will wait until the voting has closed before removing the multiple votes.

Horses in the top 10 or 15 are continuing to gain legitimate votes from people wanting to vote for a horse who is actually a chance of making the top 10.

If the illegal votes were removed now, people might be more inclined to vote for those better horses who are around positions 15 to 25.

Thanks 4 the input harry hindsight   

Ianb, I think they are going to review the isp addresses from all votes and all multiple votes will be eliminated

That could be interesting because some people could argue that mates could use the same computer at a friends place etc to vote when visiting them.

It will be a lot more accurate if they delayed the verification email by a hour or more. This means more chance of genuine votes as the ones trying to vote a lot in a day with fake emails etc would have to write passwords and logins etc to check and more cumbersome.

 I don't know what has  happened to me over night but  I actually agree with your last posting Peter.

Might yet not be too late for "Her Winxness" by today's press

Would upset a few 

Let's make it clear here though, I class her as the best horse that has run in Australia in my 54 years of following racing. It's just they haven't bothered to take  any risks with her ie she hasn't raced out of her optimum distance range (1400 to 2200) or been  tried  over seas.

Which has been the world's best horse over the past 10-20 years or so?

Frankel,, maybe?

Ove what distances did he run and how far was he travelled to compete?

Hmmm,

I like a barely known WA horse that ran second in a Group 2 at 11 years of age....

Different criteria to most for sure.

Fours

My point was that the first 2 went overseas and Kingston Town didn't but was able to win from 1200 to 3200.

Winx did neither.

I am sure the connections of Winx have learnt from what Black Caviar did. I also think that Peter Moody saw what he did with Typhoon Tracey and thought I can do better with Black Caviar by not taking risks.

It is probably more to do with the fact that almost every horse in Australia has Northern Dancer in their breeding now and therefore the breed is not as hardy as it used to be.  And don't forget steroids were rife in the 60s and 70s.

So You Think is only 7 or so years ago and he ran in the  Melbourne Cup after winning his second Cox Plate. No doubt if he had remained with Bart he would have had a seasoned Autumn campaign as well.

Okay,  Black Caviar ran once overseas but she was held to distances she was proven at.

Winx has been criticised that" she avoided her main competition"but just like Kingston Town her campaign was mapped and the supposed" top opponents" had their campaigns mapped to avoid her not the reverse.

all they had to do was go to the ARC last year , prob solved

easy to say !