Agree with your sentiments about Grand Armee Paddy , i think the jury is still out about this guys ability at least until after this race.

Very good race this with 2 Gr1 winners (Lord Essex & Crawl) 3 Gp2 winners (Carael Boy , Boreale & Silent Impact) plus Salgado a Gp3 winner and Corporate Bruce who has 2 Gp1 placings , and of course you have 3 horses that look to have bright futures in Benarrivo , Cognac Trader and Grand Armee.

My Selections:

(1) Lord Essex , good first up run down the Flemington straight behind Belle Du Jour beaten 3.8L.Narrowly beaten in this race last year coming from barrier 13 , this time gets barrier 5 although goes up to 58.5kg which i don't think should worry.Doesn't seem to be any pace in the race so i wouldn't be surprised to see him lead or sit behind the leader(s) and has the services of C.W.Brown who is on deadset fire at the moment and trained by one J.Hawkes who is apparently a good trainer i've heard.

For second another Hawkes runner in (5) Boreale resuming after winning the Villiers and has won 2 from 3 first up.From Barrier 2 gets a perfect run and is suited by the lack of pace just like Lord Essex , they seem like a good quinella.

I didn't mind the first up run of (4) Corporate Bruce , couldn't get into the race from the tail of the field but still ran on strongly to finish only 4.5L from Planchet.Unsuited by the likely pace , but if the jockeys have the same idea as me they might charge up front and set the race up for this bloke.

Hard to leave out the likes of Crawl and Carael Boy but as someone once said you can't tip them all.

Cheers.