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#61
4th October 2019, 11:53 PM
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Here's a bit of fun. It's time for a progressive look at "the system".
The first time I hosted one of these threads I included a few historical form factor factoids spread through different horse profiles. After the race was won and done, I went back and collected the form factors to see how they did. The Cup winner was the only one who satisfied all of the following:
The 'Within first 9 runners at the turn in last race' was omitted from last year's calculations; probably 'cause it was hard to determine for some runners and pretty useless for others, given that many of the fields comprised of 9 runners or less in any case! Last year 'the system' was used ahead of the race and it did pretty well. The first 4 were among the top 7 rated by the system and the winner was one of those in yellow. Now what's this yellow business? The horses with a yellow background in the image were those with a Conduit Mare Profile Stamina number of 17. Search for the 'Is Dosage Bunkum?' thread for the background, but essentially only 24% of Cup runners have this figure of 17 but they've won 10 of the past 11 races (missed in 2010). Now that's all out of the way, here's a progressive standing of where the nominees figure per 'the system'. Obviously this is going to change following further racing. I might update it once a week just to see how much movement there is.
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#62
7th October 2019, 12:56 PM
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Surprise Baby has been penalised 1kg in the Melbourne Cup following his win in The Bart Cummings. This takes him from 52.5kg to 53.5kg.
Almandin received the same penalty in 2016. He was given an Official Handicap Rating of 99 following the 2016 Bart Cummings. In the Cup he carried 52kg (though he was originally given 51kg, the field shifted up 1kg so that the topweight was at least 57kg - the rule at the time). Surprise Baby now has a current Official Handicap Rating of 104 - only going up 1 rating point following his win. ...which says something about Saturday's opposition, I suppose. That accounts for the 5 rating point/2.5kg difference between what he's now set to carry vs what Almandin was supposed to carry in 2016. For comparison's sake, Almandin's Bart Cummings victory was in 2'37.47s (35.27s last 600m), lumping 55kg. Surprise Baby did it in 2'38.66s (35.18s) with 57kg; so about two lengths slower with the weight discrepancy taken into account. It was also the 10th race in both of their careers: for Almandin it was preceded by 4 Australian runs, in which his overseas handicap actually came down (so it wasn't like they had guessed his standard horribly wrong). Almandin would go on to win the 2016 Melbourne Cup, of course, just 0.1 lengths ahead of Heartbreak City, but 4.45 lengths ahead of 3rd. In that respect it seems a pretty sporting penalty for Surprise Baby, particularly given that he's already shown he can comfortably run 2 miles in his Adelaide Cup victory earlier this year. The problem is that Cross Counter, for example, has a 118 handicap and is also quite handy over 3200m. Assuming rough equivalence between British and Australian official ratings, there should be a 7kg difference between what Cross Counter carries (57.5kg) and Surprise Baby (now 53.5kg) does: there's only 4kg (or 8 lengths over 3200m, as Greg Carpenter has it). Even worse is Master of Reality, also with 118 from Irish Racing but only carrying 55.5kg. In that regard, Surprise Baby has had few favours when compared to some overseas raiders. Then again, the ratings get a little wibbly-wobbly over longer races, so it's all a matter of interpretation... Following his Bart Cummings win Surprise Baby was briefly the Cup favourite. At $9. Which was a huge overreaction... Presumably following his penalty he's now out to $13 and it's Finche that has moved into favouritism at $8. Both Finche and Surprise Baby were ranked highly per 'the system', which I posted ahead of Saturday's racing, so hopefully that prompted people to get on before their odds were slashed - if they were going to anyway. I stupidly tried to multi Surprise Baby in the Bart Cummings and Melbourne Cup futures. It's not in my pending bets so I presume that it wasn't accepted due to them being related events. I just didn't see it complain obviously enough about it at the time.
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#63
7th October 2019, 10:45 PM
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Here's an updated Order of Entry: https://cdn.racing.com/-/media/rv/2...try-as-at-oct-7
And here's the weekend's results from Cup nominees:
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#64
7th October 2019, 11:47 PM
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Not a whole lot changed with the order of horses per 'the system'.
Hush Writer stayed on 9 points but received a boost to his handicap. An 8th place finish doesn't sound too notable, but it was his first Group 1 race and he only finished 2 lengths behind the winner in The Metropolitan. His rating moved from 96 to 101. A similar story for Vow And Declare but the rise in his rating was even larger: from 85 to 100. Notable rating rises also went to Te Akau Caliburn (+4), Alfarris (+5), Looks Like Elvis (+4) and Attention Run (+12), though those are all well down the order. Rostopovich dropped down the table following what looked like a meh run in The Turnbull. The Stewards Report said he over raced early and was three wide. He held his ground at the end but did not run on. Kings Will Dream gained a point after his win in the same race. Neufbosc, Wolfe, Supernova and Fairlight also moved up to 8 points. But it's a different 8 points really... Wolfe and Supernova took out the placings in the Bart Cummings, gaining a point for finishing within 3 lengths of the winner. Fairlight gained a point for the same but his was via a 7th placing in a BM74. Neufbosc earned an extra point for starting at < $16; never mind that he finished 30 lengths behind! Ispolini, Finche and Surprise Baby are still on top with 10 points; the latter the only one to have a Conduit Mare Stamina figure of 17 (on the minus side: he's carrying too much weight).
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#65
8th October 2019, 11:52 PM
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 Surprise Baby
5yo B/BR Gelding
Shocking (AUS) - Bula Baby (NZ) [By Kaapstad (NZ)]
10s: 5-1-1
Surprise Baby is the great local hope in the 2019 Melbourne Cup. Forgive for the moment that he is New Zealand-bred; that's close enough! The Europeans have had it too much their own way, lately. Though is that any wonder given the dire local programming of endurance races and the focus on breeding early-maturing sprinters in Australia?
New Zealand isn't quite as enamoured by the shorter races. Still though, his sire Shocking - the 2009 Melbourne Cup winner - stands at Rich Hill Stud in Waikato, NZ and his coverage fee is a comparatively paltry $NZ8500. A price that was actually dropped from $10,000 the year before! Bred to Bula Baby, who predominately raced over the mile to mile and a quarter - their progeny was so unappealing it was passed in at auction: twice.
Eventually his breeders listed him on gavelhorse.com, a site where you can buy a horse for as little as a few hundred dollars. Surprise Baby's sale price was $NZ5500. His current winnings are over $700,000.
Had he not sold, Rich Hill Stud would have run him themselves. They could be upset about it all (not to mention having also sold his dam in the meantime) but are doubtless feeling positive about Shocking become a more popular sire (he has several progeny for sale in the upcoming Ready To Run Sale in late November, which should be a fair indication of change in market sentiment).
Shocking has sired 153 runners thus far; of those there has only been one Group 1 winner: Fanatic, who narrowly won the 2016 New Zealand Oaks (a 3yo race over 2400m at Trentham). His progeny predominately contest 1200-2000m, though those who are tested at the Cup distance seem to do reasonably well: 6 individual runners share 3 wins and 2 places over 12 attempts.
One of these, of course, is Surprise Baby, who has already shown he can run the distance following his victory in the Adelaide Cup earlier this year: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZJb0KsO5_kE
While he impressively pulled away to win by two lengths (as a 72-rater in a Group 2 race), even his jockey stated that it "wasn't the strongest Adelaide Cup ever". Perhaps more should be made of the win though, considering that it was only his 6th start and he leapt 1200m further than his last, after he missed a lead-up run on account of being scratching due to barrier manners. In his favour for the Cup, he showed that he has a very nice turn of foot.
So: Adelaide Cup winner. Big deal, right? After all, the previous winners never seemed to go on to greatness, did they? (The 2018 winner was his "brother" Fanatic, in what turned out to be his final Australian race). What was different this year was that another Melbourne Cup ballot exemption race had been added to the calendar: the Andrew Ramsden.
Surprise Baby's target became this race. On the way he placed in a Flemington 2600m handicap, despite being severley inconvenienced by Belgravia, who was injured and sadly had to be euthanised. His final 800m was the fastest in the field but was left a little too much to do, finishing 0.4 lengths from the winner Steel Prince. There was a 6kg difference in the Prince's favour.
In the Andrew Ramsden, Surprise Baby and Steel Prince had a ding-dong battle: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5YsfrIGsXys. The result went to a photo with Steel Prince just taking the win and earning a ticket into the Melbourne Cup.
Surprise Baby spelled and returned over 1600m with a middling effort, before his win in the Bart Cummings: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=P66NyCL9tEA, earning the Cup exemption that he had just missed out on earlier this year.
He again showed that he was likely to race midfield or worse before unleashing a fierce, sustained finishing burst. Encouragingly he did this despite being weighted higher than those he overhauled. The query is whether he will be able to do this against far higher standard competitors....
Surprise Baby's Dosage Profile is (1-14-19-0-0) with a DI of 2.58 and CD of 0.47. That would indicate his best is at around is at about 2200m.
His Conduit Mare Profile is (4-6-5-6-11) with Speed 10, Stamina 17 , Index of 0.58, and Triads (15-17-22) which seems to imply a little longer. The bulk of that profile is in the Professional category, after all, so perhaps around 2600-2800m is his best distance. That Stamina figure of 17 has seemed to be the magic number for Melbourne Cup winners the past few years, with 10 of the past 11 winners having the same. This year only 10 of the remaining candidates have such, and only 5 of those are in the top 24 per the current Order of Entry.
His win saw him briefly become the race favourite before a 1kg penalty was announced. He's now the second favourite, somewhere between $9.50 and $11.00, depending on the bookie.
I like this horse a lot. But I would feel far more confident were he carrying less than 53.5kg. The encouraging thing is that he's only 10 races into his career, so the handicapper might not quite have a bead on him yet. As it stands though, he has a 104 handicap rating and Master of Reality, for example, is rated at 118. They should be 7kg apart in the weights, but there's only a 2kg difference. 5 kilos/10 lengths is a whole lot of distance to make up given that the bulk of that is likely to occur in the final straight of a 3200m against hardened Group1 winners...
While things could certainly fall in his favour and he may take victory, I'm inclined to think that he'll be a Top 5 finisher and fall just short. This is the '17 Stamina' horse that should win but has been set a very difficult and weighty task. This might break the run.... Last edited by walkermac : 8th October 2019 at 11:56 PM.
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#66
9th October 2019, 11:14 AM
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Acceptances for this weekend's racing from Melbourne Cup nominees.
A few of the internationals will be marking their release from Quarantine with a run in the Herbert Power: Prince of Arran, Raheen House, Haky and True Self. Their Australian ratings differ from their British ones a little. Raheen House has a British handicap of 111 and an Aussie mark of 105. Prince of Arran has been given the same Aussie rating but is only 108 at home.
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#67
9th October 2019, 08:16 PM
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Thanks for all the updates walkermac. I can't wait for the final system horses.
__________________
Never give up on a dream just because of the time it will take to accomplish it. The time will pass anyway.” ― Earl Nightingale
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#68
10th October 2019, 04:54 PM
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 Steel Prince
5yo B Gelding
Nathaniel (IRE) - Steel Princess (IRE) [By Danehill (USA)]
20s: 8-5-1 Steel Prince is the other horse currently holding a ballot exemption for the 2019 Melbourne Cup. For the first time, this was on account of a win in May's Listed 2800m Andrew Ramsden. The internationalisation of The Cup has been a hot button topic in recent times and the addition of this race to those offering ballot exemption was largely to more easily provide a pathway for an Australian runner. A 'pathway for an Australian trainer' is perhaps more accurate. Steel Prince after all was bred and raced in Ireland. Locals buying interest in internationals on Cup-eve is the new trend, so give it a couple of years and the bulk of entrants in the Andrew Ramsden will likely be those very same looking for another chance. It's very much a short-term band-aid solution, when the actual answer is to provide a racing calendar that gives endurance horses a chance at a career. None of that should reflect on Steel Prince's win in the Andrew Ramsden, however. As noted in the Surprise Baby profile, it was a close and exciting battle: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5YsfrIGsXys. Steel Prince's win closed out a remarkable 5yo 2018/19 Season: 11 races comprising 7 wins and 4 seconds. His Australian career started at BM70 level (after winning his maiden in Ireland as part of a short non-descript career; including a loss in his debut to Homesman). Once he hit the 2400m distance he looked a real prospect though. He then got caught up in the Darren Weir scandal and was part of a diaspora that saw him end up with Lee Freedman. This new partnership began with him stringing 5 wins together, including the Andrew Ramsden, and a rise of 20 rating points. Surprise Baby was favourite in that race, following a narrow loss to Steel Prince earlier that month and a 6.5kg swing in his favour in the weights this time around. Though there was only 0.1L in it at the finish line, Surprise Baby ran nearly 4 lengths longer over the course, so Steel Prince could have been said to be lucky. I think it moreso says something about the competitor Steel Prince is; the Best Bets race comment has it that he "refused to lose". So Steel Prince was first into the Melbourne Cup; though it wasn't such a sure thing for quite some time. There were delays in awarding prizemoney for the race and rumours swirled that they had found something in the swabs taken. For a time Surprise Baby was best backed for the Cup, with the suspicion he was about to be elevated to Ramsden winner and take the ballot exemption. It turned out this was all for nought though, with the prizemoney finally coming through with no official concerns and Surprise Baby winning exemption through the Bart Cummings (though those who moved early would still be happy with the odds they got earlier on in the piece). The big advantage of winning the Ramsden was being able to plot your program to the Cup without having to stress about qualifying. This was particularly advantageous for Steel Prince as according to his trainer: "He's a European horse and the more you run them the more dour they get". The plan was his fourth run of this campaign to be the Melbourne Cup. With his next race this Saturday's Herbert Power Stakes it means he'll likely skip the Caulfield Cup, for which he still holds a nomination. This is his first Group 2 race and his first against such weighty opposition: and it will only get tougher as none of these are higher than 26 in the order of entry. Last year's 3rd placegetter Prince of Arran makes his return, as does Ebor Cup favourite Raheen House. Both of these also appear to have received some handicap favours, carrying 1.5-3kg less than their British Official Ratings would imply. Despite this Steel Prince is the $3.90 favourite. I find it hard to see him winning this Saturday, unless he improves lengths on what he's shown before. That's certainly not impossible given his trajectory but, given the top 6 are all weighted per their Melbourne Cup handicaps, if there isn't that improvement - or at least excuses - then it's hard to see him succeeding there either. On the positive side, he's another with the magic 17 Stamina figure. He's also one of the few that survived the genealogy filtering I do (looking at ancestors Conduit Indexes, GSV figures, Dosage and other nonsense). Only he and Southern France survived the process (with Cross Counter missing out on account of the weight he'll carry). His Dosage Profile is (3-6-21-8-0) with DI of 1.05 and CD of 0.11. This would imply that up to 3200m should be fine. His Conduit Mare Profile is (3-9-1-8-9), with Speed 12, Stamina 17 and Conduit Index of 0.59 and Triads of (13-18-18); say: 2400m is ideal? Currently at $26 in Futures betting and it seems fair for mine, that that would stay the same until race day, unless he shows marked improvement this weekend. I don't think he'll be among "the system's" top picks, having already won 8 career races, for one thing. If I were pressed to pick where he'll finish, I'd go midfield, give or take. Last edited by walkermac : 10th October 2019 at 04:56 PM.
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#69
11th October 2019, 10:24 PM
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 Marmelo
6yo B Horse
Duke Of Marmalade - Capriolla (GB) [by In The Wings (GB)] 22s: 7-8-1 I wanted to write another profile while I had some momentum; I have doubts that tomorrow's headliners Avilius and Homesman will go on to contest the Melbourne Cup, no others racing this weekend have made the final field yet, and I didn't want to waste my effort on a non-runner. So why not Marmelo?
In 2017 I wrote on Marmelo's profile: here's the horse that will win The Cup. I checked. I was only joshing though. I'd looked at some genealogical filters of past winners and Marmelo was the only one in the current field who fell within the bounds. The reason I was joking about it was because I believed it was all a bit silly.
In yesterday's profile I wrote that only Steel Prince and Southern France survived this year's genealogical filtering so, given that this stuff doesn't change from year-to-year, where was Marmelo this time around? Well, in turns out this stuff does change from year-to-year! pedigreequery.com now sources their Dosage data from an Australian consortium who use additional/different chefs. These figures put Marmelo just out of bounds (and likely many of the others from history on whom my filters were based); I might try and update it again later.
In 2017 Hugh Bowman went for home waaaay too early and Marmelo's run ended with 300m to go. Post-race his trainer thought that he may have been left flat by his run in the Caulfield Cup. Bowman certainly expected more in the tank and a look at Marmelo's stats seemed to bear the hypothesis out.
The following year they elected to go straight to the Cup without a lead-up run. This decision bore fruit when he was only overhauled by the far too lightly-weighted Cross Counter in the last 50m: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XGUBQdYmiWY
The end result was perhaps even better than it looked: the Steward's Report recorded that he began awkwardly, tried to eat Avilius on leaving the gates and then finished up lame in his hind leg. He did get a pretty charmed run around the turn though, which saw him cut towards the inside and improve 8 places within 200m.
So what's changed this year? The Australian preparation surely hasn't. The intent is still to go straight into The Cup. His handicap has gone up 1kg though. Sort of. Hugh Bowman weighed 1kg over for last year's race, so his handicap is essentially unchanged. The northern hemisphere 4yos have been slugged an extra kilo this time, so given that he was beaten narrowly by the best of those last year and that the 3rd place horse (Prince of Arran) was 2 lengths further back: they'd be stoked, surely! The query is whether he's bringing the same form this year....
Per the Official French Ratings, he is: http://www.france-galop.com/en/hors...Xk4dW1uUitZdz09. His rating hasn't gone below 51.5 (i.e. 114) since the 2017 Melbourne Cup. The British ratings agree: 114 ahead of the 2018 Cup (a peak of 117 after it) and now back to 114.
One change this season is that he's had some shorter runs. Last year he didn't run below 2800m, this season he had 3 runs over 2400m. While his first showed an impressive finish (https://twitter.com/RacingTV/status/1117163356987764736), the next two 2400m performances were a little middling.
Back at 2800m and above he had two good runs. The first of these a nose behind Way To Paris at equal weights (and 4 lengths ahead of 3rd): https://youtu.be/JUYbtGgguiI. Way To Paris (115) would finish 2 lengths behind Waldgeist following this run, carrying the same, and Waldgeist (128) would next take out the Arc by 1.75L.
Another Prix Kergolay victory followed for Marmelo (https://youtu.be/e8Gd3hkddl4), narrowly finishing ahead of Call The Wind (115) who would split Holdthaisgreen (116) and Dee Ex Bee (119) in his next race at equal weights.
What a long-winded way to say that Marmelo does indeed seem to be going as well as he was last year, if not better.... And if that's the case he looks a very good chance of another top finish.
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#70
12th October 2019, 06:51 PM
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Today's results from Cup nominees:
The Chosen One passes the first ballot clause and looks like he'll be around 42nd in the Order. If he gets a 1kg penalty then he'll be about 30th. I think it's quite plausible he'll get 1.5kg - which means he's as high as 23rd. Prince of Arran may be in the running for one also, they both put 3 lengths on the rest of the field.... The problem is that it wasn't a very strong field. Yucatan got a 2.5kg penalty for his Herbert Power win in 2018 with a smaller margin, but he eased down a lot and his race was still a second faster (both on Good 3). Racing Victoria will announce any penalties on Monday, along with a new Order of Entry. Second Acceptances are due at noon the day after. Steel Prince was a late scratching; per the Steward's Report: "Fractious in the barrier and kicked out. Underwent a veterinary examination and was found to be lame left hind and had sustained abrasions to the thigh". Will need a vet clearance ahead of his next race. When might that be? It was reported they wanted another run ahead of the Melbourne Cup. They haven't made the Caulfield Cup field. Would he heal in time for Wednesday's 2000m Coongy Cup? Other targets could be the Geelong Cup on the 23rd, or the Moonee Valley Cup on the 26th.
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