I've mentioned this Cup System over the last few years and it's picked a couple (though missed last renewal). It's "Aspro's Melbourne Cup System", presumably soon to be posted by Racing & Sports:
Rule 1 - List any Cup acceptor placed in either the Caulfield Cup
Incentivise, Persan
Rule 2 - List any Cup acceptor placed 2nd, 3rd or 4th in the Moonee Valley Gold Cup
Floating Artist, Pondus
Rule 3 - List any acceptor who was placed 1-2-3 in the Melbourne Cup at their last cup run
Twilight Payment
Rule 4 - List the Lexus Stakes winner
Great House
Rule 5 - Delete any horse whose last run in the Melbourne Cup was an unplaced run.
Goodbye: Persan
Rule 6 - Delete any horse who is aged 3yo or 7yo or older.
Goodbye: Twilight Payment
So per this system, the winner comes from:
Incentivise,
Floating Artist,
Pondus and
Great House.
Note also that it doesn't account for debuting foreign runners, which was considered a bit of a negative thing for a while, but is well and truly not as great an issue now. So perhaps nowadays Aspro would throw
Spanish Mission and
Sir Lucan into consideration also.
Interesting that 4 of these 6 candidates are on the top two rungs of "the system" ladder (and that only one of them is under $21 - while also being the only one in the field to have not won a black type race). In any case, perhaps Floating Artist, Pondus, Great House and Sir Lucan are worth further consideration.
Grand Promenade is on the top rung and misses out but I'm not too fussed to be honest. Back in 2018 I developed a theory that the Bart Cummings winner wouldn't finish top 5 unless the field in that race ran a sub-36s final 600m (
http://www.ozmium.com.au/forums/sho...69&postcount=50). I think it was a historical indicator that the media were peddling at the time. Avilius had just won it in 36.27s and I predicted he'd finish worse than 5th, despite opening at $13 on the day. He came in 22nd.
Surprise Baby won it in 2019 with a 35.18s last sectional and finished in 5th. Persan won it in 2020 with a 34.77s last sectional and also finished in 5th. Grand Promenade ran it in 37.58s. Some allowance perhaps for it being a Soft 5, but that's a fair deal slower.