Racing in Australia right now is brilliant to watch. Vibrant, on the up, exciting and full of enthusiasm, anticipation and quality.
EDIT: Zaaki has been scratched from the 2021 Cox Plate after spiking a temperature on the morning of the race.
There have been some cracking performances of late. The old warhorse Nature Strip won the seventh race we consider a G1 when battling hard to win The Everest at Randwick, earning a TRC Computer Race Rating of 122 and rising to world #6.
Even better was Incentivise, who ran well enough when winning the G1 Caulfield Cup to have been at least placed in the Prix de l’Arc de Triomphe, according to our figures.
Could there be even better to come? The Cox Plate at Moonee Valley tomorrow (Saturday) sees a clash between some of the best middle-distance horses in Australia and New Zealand – intriguingly serving as a clash between the generations at the same time.
The older horses are headed by #15 Zaaki, #23 Verry Elleegant, #53 Probabeel, #57 Mo’unga; while for the younger brigade, it is #22 Anamoe, #189 Captivant and the Irish-trained U.S. G1 winner #314 State Of Rest. What a race!
It takes a high-end performance to win the Cox Plate, though not quite of the standard the mighty Winx produced for her four consecutive victories. Indeed, the nature of Moonee Valley often results in a tight finish, which has tended to restrict the rating a winner can earn – even though we make allowance for this trend in our ratings algorithm.
The median rating of the last ten winners is 119, but, with the rising tide of quality of Australian racing (especially over middle-distances) in mind, something around TRC 121 will make a horse extremely competitive in this, as the table of past winners during the TRC era shows:
With this rating of 121 in mind, let’s access the dimensions of the field of 2021, leaving out Gold Trip, who has been prohibited from running:
So, three horses have already met the standard of TRC 121 we estimated above, while three more are within 3pts of it. Of course, nothing can be taken for granted in these top races, as recent surprise winners of the Prix de l’Arc de Triomphe and Champion Stakes at Ascot have underlined. This is especially true around the Valley, which all goes to show the greatness of Winx once again.
ZAAKI heads the race rankings, not withstanding his shock defeat at the hands of Probabeel in the G1 Might And Power at Caulfield two weeks ago. Previously the winner of two G1s in Australia, the 6-year-old is always an interesting runner for racing fans in Britain. He appears to be much improved since swapping Sir Michael Stoute for Annabel Neasham as his trainer and also being gelded.
He never looked comfortable last time after racing freely early on, but he was very impressive before that, showing an electric turn of foot. With the brilliant world #4 James McDonald back in the plate, he can bounce back to form here.
What we can’t be sure of is where the Australian-trained 3-year-olds fit, especially in receipt of 21lb of weight-for-age from older males. Anamoe heads them, according to our numbers, and has looked supremely talented in four wins, including the G1 Inglis Sires’ and G1 Caulfield Guineas. The latter victory came by only half a length from Captivant but was arguably worth more than that in terms of the effort required. Captivant has a good deal of tactical speed himself, so it will be interesting to see how these youngsters go getting the allowance.
Once again, the 1-2-3 in ante-post betting is the 1-2-3 by TRC Global Rankings, which is always pleasing from a technical standpoint.
Nobody in their right mind would rule out Verry Elleegant despite her being ranked behind a couple. She started favourite for the Turnbull last up but was well beaten (like everyone else) by Incentivise and could finish only fourth, but we know she is better than that. An outside draw in stall 9 will not help her cause. She finished well beaten in this in 2019 behind the Japanese-trained Lys Gracieux.
The rankings algorithm took the view that 5-year-old mare Probabeel did not improve on her longstanding 118 when beating Zaaki last time, for she only won by a short head from Nonconformist, but it is not impossible that the whole of that form is underrated. We will find out here, as she is definitely thriving and we much prefer her chance to the other Kiwi, Callsign Mav.
Mo’unga is definitely not out of it. He has a deceptive, lazy style of racing that could hide his true talent somewhat.
The Joseph O’Brien-trained State Of Rest should provide an interesting guide to the quality of the field he beat in the G1 Saratoga Derby. The computer needs convincing that he fits into the top bracket.