3 minute read

The best sprinter in the world will step out this weekend – though there is some debate as to where.

The Newmarket, the Challenge and the Canterbury Stakes will be run across a single hour on Saturday afternoon. The races will be headlined by Imperatriz (rated 126 by Racing and Sports), Think About it (126) and Private Eye (123) respectively.

This will be an amusing hour for fans but, for connection beyond the trivial, the sport relies on competition – more races for fewer horses is not a long term play.

Horse races, or innovations as we now call them, should aim to concentrate competition rather than dilute it.

This has been the success of The Everest, the Country Championships, the Pakenham Rising Stars Series and the Victorian Country Cup Series. Other concepts have fallen short of this ideal.

The three races named off the top are hardly at the forefront of the problem. All three have their place and have had it for a long time now. But, having skipped each other in the spring, seeing Imperatriz and Think About It race an hour apart is rubbing our noses in it.

The boardroom battle often seems to be one to get the best horses rather than the best races and while that goes on fans (and the sport) will serve as collateral damage.

As a rule, the view of trainers should be taken with a pinch of salt - at the crossroads of concentrating and diluting competition their interests and the interests of the sport diverge - but the sporting nature of some trainers is one of the great hopes for racing and its fans. 

Joe Pride told SEN's Gareth Hall: "If we're going to handpick every race it's not good for the sport; I'm not scared of getting beat. The reason he's going to the mile is to find out if we should aim for another Everest or the Cox Plate."

Hallelujah! Pride made an economic decision in the spring, and can hardly be derided for that, but the sport has its interests elsewhere and should never have given him that decision to make. It is down to Pride's competitive spirit to set down a challenge for his outstanding horse; to play the sport not the spreadsheet, to give the fans and the game what it needs.

Mark Walker can be afforded the same praise. His magnificent mare Imperatriz has won at the top level on both sides of the Tasman, from 1000m to a mile, on slow and fast ground, from on and off speed and in slow and fast races. Round the tight-turning Valley and now down the wide-open spaces of the Flemington straight.

Now she is set her biggest challenge, one largely unique to racing in this part of the world, and punters are set a challenge too.

Much will be made of the weight; such is the nature of the race and the scenario. It makes it harder, an efficient market will tell you that, as the odds-on quotes of recent races make way for $2.60 and perhaps better to come.

The record of former weight-carriers will be analysed and scrutinised. It will be interesting -perhaps even informative. Two points worth making:

1. A count of winners needs the context of attempts. Six horses have won the Newmarket with 57ks or more since 2000. That counts for 25% of Newmarket winners and they have achieved that from just 24 runners – 8.5% of total runners. In other words, they are winning three times as often as they would if they weren't better than a normal chance of winning.
2. You could only really argue (in my opinion, which I would argue for…) that three horses were beaten by the weight in the Newmarket in that timespan and, even then, there are clearly a multitude of other variables at play in the result.

If she is beaten on Saturday, chances are that it won't be solely for the weight. A bad day, a bad pace, luck in running, they are all there, just like they have been there in the six big wins she has put together in the lead up.

But if she is to win she will have to carry it and others will fancy their chances of landing a shot.

The early betting makes Beunos Noches the one most likely to topple the champ with Magic Time next.

The case for Beunos Noches is fairly straightforward. He ran Imperatriz to half a length here in the Champions Sprint and meets her on significantly better terms. He wasn't given much chance first up, left poorly placed, and this will surely set up better for him. But he hardly sparkled there with the run rating very similarly to the one that he produced on his way to running seventh in this race last year.

Bella Nipotina also arrives off a rating that matches what she produced first up before running in last year's Newmarket – where she ran a shocker…

That is a concern but at double figure prices it is easier to look past the negatives and focus on the positives. The return run is one of those, her win in the competition-diluting 'Winners Stakes' over Private Eye is another, and some creative work around formlines with Magic Time rounds out a case that makes her a cheap bet to have.

Her draw, alongside the fave, and Craig Williams, under who she has her best record, sweeten the deal.

She goes up as our each-way play against a good favourite.

Two races later, the Shaftesbury Avenue is fittingly run in honour of a horse who carried a big weight and won a Newmarket.

Here the resuming Amenable appeals as another good favourite in a top-heavy race where plenty of focus will land on the import Berkshire Shadow.

He posted two good wins in the UK at this time last year before running placed in the Lockinge and competitively in the Queen Anne. That's achievement above and beyond his opposition and reports about him are upbeat in his new surrounds.

But they are also upbeat about Amenable who has been gelded since last seen and might be able to put things on his terms a bit more this time around. Much of his good work to this point has come with a sharp change of gear from tricky spots in slow races but he showed substance over splits at his most recent runs and that, along with the cut, may be the making of him.

Like Icarus, Amenable flew to close to Pride Of Jenni (she is the sun in this bad analogy) in the Toorak and showed a likeable hard edge.

Toughness underpinning talent is what Newmarket day is all about. Amenable has both and he can make it pay before moving on to bigger and better challenges.

THE MELBOURNE MAIL 

Bet Of The Day: Race 7 #3 Amenable @ $2.40 with bet365*

Each Way Play: Race 5 #2 Bella Nipotina @ $12.00 with bet365*

*Prices correct as of 1:00pm AEST 

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