my mistake ;)

This Saturday will feel like the Cox Plate in Phar Lap's day - the Moonee Valley Cup will be a better race.

She should be as only one 3yr. old filly has ever won the Cox Plate, the mighty Surround in 76'. Unlike Surround, SM hasn't raced and won at WFA level, nor raced and won in open company before the Cox and is having her first run at the track. If she can win this she is something special straight out of the box. All things considered and all hype aside, she should be at 20/1 at least as she is no Surround ...yet.

very true.

we've seen them all before, Serenade Rose, Special Harmony, Miss Finland (especially). every year there seems to be a filly generating huge hype, but they just do not win the cox plate (as weak as this year's field is).

first start in melbourne, first start around mooney valley, first race longer than a mile, first go at WFA, first race against older horses, unlike the plodders she has being beating.

i was never a fan of miss finland, but if she couldnt win the cox with 47 kgs (having already run 2nd in the salinger and beaten Haradasun in the mcneil) then samantha miss has no chance

I gotta say if there is ever a 3yo filly that might pull this off then Samantha Miss might be it she is bred to see the trip out no worries, thing to remeber here is alot of the 3yos that have tried this have not been either bred to run this trip out or haven't been able to at any point.

she has drawn a great gate and for mine will be exceptionally hard to beat is she unders maybe but that has more to do with the opposition than anything else.

There are not many that can win this race in my mind Samantha Miss, Princess Coup are both musts after that i can give a small chance to Zipping, Sirmione and C'est La Guerre and thats about it for me.

SM has proved nothing against open class or WFA so the odds should reflect this, but won't. Sirmione looks good but has a lousy record at the track.

Crash I amnot arguing what she has proven but she hasn't really proven she can't yet either, call me stupid but Savabeel hadn't proven a great deal of anything a couple of years ago and he won quite comprehensively against a far stronger field than she meets tomorrow.

Am I saying she is a moral now she is not but she is going to be extremely hard to beat, Princess Coup will be tough to beat for sure and certain she is a class horse but she will be giving the filly a start in the run whether she can do that at the valley with the weight difference time will tell. 2 months ago I would have been all over Sirmione in this race and may still have a little saver on him but I wouldn't be trusting him to fire tomorrow he may have been a victim of a slowly run race last start but C'est La Guerre run in the same race was 100 times better and he is the one i feel is going to start over the odds.

SM might prove to be a little champ. But the odds for not having proven anything yet?

No the odds aren't reflective of what she has done i think the odds are reflective of what she might do and what the rest of the field has shown, would anyone else join me in saying this is by far the worst cox plate assembled in the last 10 years if not much much longer.

Hard to disagree with the facts and logic:


'Whilst Samantha Miss has everyone excited, she hasn’t even proven she’s any good yet - away from the sanctity of her won age and/or own age and sex.

Why do I query where Samantha Miss sits in the general score of things? Well she lacks the only two things she ever needs to become something great in life - 1) acceleration and 2) an ability to run fast time overall.

Granted she hasn’t been given the opportunity “to run time overall” on many occasions, as she’s encountered “dead” tracks thrice, a “slow ” track once and “heavy” tracks on another two occasions.

I’d also declare that Samantha Miss has never beaten a decent horse. You might say she beat Sebring and that is true, but I can assure you he was no revelation as a racehorse. Samantha Miss had the advantage of racing in 2YO races grossly affected by Equine Influenza - when quality fellow 3YO gallopers like Victorian Whobegotyou and fellow New South Welshman Dreamscape hadn’t even debuted.

Media outlets keep fanning the Samantha Miss bushfire with talk of this “champion” filly, but if you take one step back and smell the roses, she has earned her reputation through defeating legless excuses of racehorses – the likes of Glowlamp. As at right this minute, that filly Glowlamp is such a revelation that she is still a Maiden after nine starts. Yet Glowlamp would seem to be a fair litmus test for Samantha Miss as she has been competitive with Samantha Miss the last five times they’ve met - (4th in the Sires Produce when Samantha Miss ran 2nd, 3rd to Samantha Miss in the Champagne Stakes, 2nd to Samantha Miss in the Silver Shadow, 5th to her in the Furious Stakes and 3rd to her in the Tea Rose Stakes).

Now if Samantha Miss is the “champion” filly that all these media urgers incessantly ramble on about, well there are only two analogies one can logically make –1) that Glowlamp must be pretty special too, because if one is a “champion” then the other one that can go with her must be at least “special”, - yet hang on – remember what I just said “Glowlamp is still a Maiden after nine starts”. The second analogy is that the possibility exists that both Samantha Miss and Glowlamp are only ordinary.

Love And Kisses has proven she can also be competitive with Samantha Miss. Now whilst competing in the sanctity of racing her own age group, she ran 2nd to Samantha Miss in the Sires Produce, 3rd to Samantha Miss and Glowlamp in the Silver Shadow and 2nd to Samantha Miss in the Furious Stakes. By the law of logic, that would all tend to suggest that there is also not a lot separating Samantha Miss and Love And Kisses ability wise - yet Love And Kisses got run over by the males last Saturday at Randwick after having every possible chance.'

Purser, 2.10.08