In defence of the track manager, there were predictions of rain at various stages and at times the weather did look ominous. If they water it heavily and it then rains a little we end up with a Dead track, if they don't water it and the rain stays away the track is hard...either way it was hard for them to win.

There is no doubt the tracks at Flemington over the carnival were in the fast category. You only need to look at the times run to see that. My own rating records show that the track was on average 0.15 seconds fast per 200m compared to standard. So over 1600m the track was running up to 1.2 seconds fast....or approximately 7 lengths.