I do realise I was making excuses for Northerly but they were real excuses not pretend ones as was the case with Sunline.

* Northerly was being aimed at the Cox Plate much later on so the 2nd up defeat had little meaning. Regardless Corp Bruce is a good horse anyway.

* The defeat after the Cox Plate had no meaning as Northerly had 7.5kgs more and was tired. Any other trainer would have spelled the horse.

* The defeat in the Australian Cup was fair and square. OC ran pretty damn quick that day and is a very good horse on his day.

So really you have 1 defeat by OC that means anything. The time was 2 seconds quicker than Sunline has ever run. Put her in that race and she gets beaten.

As for Sunline's defeats, prior to the race BOTH the trainer and jockey said she was in good shape.

* First defeat over 1600m at MV - how can you find excuses for that one? Sunline is more suited to both MV and 1600m than Northerly and she still lost. Add to that Northerly had more weight.

* Second defeat in Cox Plate. Norterly again carried more weight and won. No excuses here.

PS: I'm not from Perth.

[ This Message was edited by: quapi on 2002-08-01 18:27 ]