Adelaide’s win in the Cox Plate, just a week after the Caulfield Cup went the way of Japan, has raised some interesting debate.
One key question, that overseas success in recent years has often raised, is regarding the quality and depth of our horses at 2000m and beyond.
The common response is to just put it down to ‘speed obsessed breeders’ and a racing pattern that places too much emphasis on two-year-old racing.
It’s a convenient answer, but not one that really holds up.
In recent times a long line of Epsom Derby winners such as New Approach, Authorized, High Chaparral, Camelot and Galileo have all stood in Australia.
Throw in the likes of American middle distance stars like Street Cry and Bernardini, plus the likes of Zabeel and his son Savabeel standing over in New Zealand, and it is clear that the stamina is there if we want it.
If the stamina is available, then is it our need for early speed and our lack of patience that is making these sires less effective in Australia than they are north of the equator?
An interesting talking point in relation to this is the record of Adelaide’s trainer, the Irish maestro Aidan O’Brien.
O’Brien’s record with middle distance performers is, quite simply, stunning.
He has trained some of the great middle distance performers of the modern era.
Galileo and High Chaparral won the Tipperary handler back-to-back Epsom Derby’s in 2001/2002 and he has now bagged the last three with Camelot, Ruler Of The World and his star colt of this season, Australia.
What is most interesting is that O’Brien has built his empire on the back of his two-year-olds.
High Chaparral, St Nicholas Abbey, Camelot, Fame And Glory are among the stamina-laden champions that O’Brien has won Group 1’s with at two.
Just this season O’Brien has won three Group 1’s with juveniles by Galileo, and another by a son of Galileo in Rip Van Winkle, who himself was a smart performer in his juvenile season.
It seems quite logical really - being a smart performer at two improves the probability that a horse will be smart at three, four, and beyond.
With that in mind, an emphasis on two-year-old racing shouldn't be holding back our middle-distance stocks.
Perhaps it is more about the way that they are prepared in Australia.
I should mention that I am no trainer of thoroughbreds - I merely enjoy watching, rating and betting on them – but points recently made by top trainer Mick Kent on RSN’s Racing Ahead program might help to illustrate this point.
Kent mentioned that issues with soundness in older horses may be coming about for reasons at the opposite end to what conventional thinking might come up with.
He suggested that the desire not to do too much work with younger horses was leaving them vulnerable to injury as they got older.
This is not necessarily about sending them to the races, but about work at home, a strong grounding for the future.
This may in turn be why we have seen so much success in recent times with horses imported from Europe.
Does this success stem from the fact that they travel down to Australia with a terrific grounding that has them better prepared for tough racing down under?
The Cox Plate result didn't just ask questions, it also hinted at some answers to previous questions.
Suggestion a couple of years back that So You Think had gone backwards under O’Brien in Europe was fanciful at the time, and surely Adelaide’s win in the Cox Plate has gone some way to dismissing that as complete rubbish.
To be competitive, let alone successful, in top European races such as the Eclipse, Irish Champion, and Prince Of Wales, is no easy task and it took a champion from down under to do so.