3 minute read

Timeform recap of the 2016 Caulfield Cup won by Jameka for trainer Ciaron Maher and jockey Nick Hall.

Jameka turned the 2016 Caulfield Cup into a procession, winning by a margin only bettered by Might And Power in the recent history of the race, and becoming the first VRC Oaks winner to take the Caulfield Cup in the long history of the race.

To do so Jameka ran to a Timeform rating of 121, up three pounds from the 118 rating she produced to win the Naturalism a month earlier.

The 2016 Caulfield Cup was subject to plenty of criticism in the lead up, the field widely considered a weak one, but the 'right' horses turned up and ran well on the day and ultimately Jameka should be seen as a good winner of the race.

Only one mare has returned a higher rating in the recent history of the Caulfield Cup - Makybe Diva ran to 124 when only narrowly beaten by Elvstroem in 2004.

Assessing times on the day is a tricky game, with northerly winds having a clear impact, but the overall time of the Caulfield Cup can be considered strong and Jameka's timefigure sits in line with her form.

A good overall time adds plenty of merit to the performance of runner-up Scottish who was slowly into stride and strung up in traffic early which saw him left to do plenty of work to get to the front.

He was a sitting shot for the well-ridden Jameka off the corner but he was good enough to see the rest off and despite running below his best in straight form terms - returning a rating of 117 - he should be considered every bit as good as the 122 rating he took into the Cup when he steps out again in the Mackinnon in a fortnight's time.

Quite remarkably, it's been seven years since the Melbourne Cup winner came through the Caulfield Cup, but Hartnell aside it's shaping as the key form reference this year.

We'd have to concede that Jameka's run was the stand-out Melbourne Cup trial but away from her the Lee Freedman-trained Exospheric set down a good platform for the first Tuesday in November.

Almoonqith set a few tongues wagging with his race-best last 200m but the Melbourne Cup requires sustained strength.

One horse ran the final 1000m faster than Jameka and that was Exospheric. He was one of three to break the minute home and that closing speed points to him being roughly 2.8 lengths better than the bare result.

As is the case with Scottish this looks a case of a 117 rating at Caulfield translating to a 122-124 at Flemington, and in turn that translates to Exospheric being a big winning chance in the Melbourne Cup.

Adjusted for weight relative to weight-for-age in the Melbourne Cup a raw rating of 124 equates to a rating of 133 for Exospheric which has him at the pointy end of the shortlist at this stage.

That list is currently headed by Hartnell at 138. Secret Number, flying very much under the radar, sits second at 134. Jameka, Wicklow Brave and Almandin are all sitting at 131.