3 minute read
Timeform recap the 2017 Caulfield Guineas won by Mighty Boss for trainer Mick Price and jockey Michael Walker.
You have to go back 26 years to Palace Reign to find a Caulfield Guineas winner rated as low as the 117 awarded to Mighty Boss on the weekend.
In the quarter of a century that followed Palace Reign, only two winners of the Caulfield Guineas failed to break the 120 barrier - In Top Swing (rated 119) and Econsul (119) were both surprise winners of the race at 20-1 and 40-1 respectively. At 100-1 Mighty Boss has topped them for surprise factor.
The pace undoubtedly played a key role in the surprise outcome. The finishing speed, described as a percentage of overall race speed, was 96.3% when something closer to 102.5% would be optimal. In simpler terms, they went much faster than ideal and those closest to the strong pace paid the price. The first five in-running filled five of the last six places over the line.
Runner up Kementari also paid the price for the early speed, sectional mark ups suggesting he was an unlucky loser, weakening late having had to strike for home earlier than ideal given the tempo. That's no crack at jockey Damien Lane who had no option but to get out and get moving with lesser horses weakening back into his lap before the turn.
Kementari is now rated 116P. A big 'P' for a big performance. It will be no surprise if he proves much better than not only that 116 rating but than the winner's by season's end.
Race favourite Royal Symphony found himself in the backwash when he needed running room. He stayed on well when clear and perhaps the margin is unfair to him but given the tempo he had a position in-running advantage over the horses he finished around. He loses the 'p' his 116 from last season but he promises to be at least as effective up to 2000m.
Catchy and Perast were either side of Royal Symphony and they both paid the price to some extent for racing closer.
Perast has proven himself a very likeable horse having been brave after being completely carved up in the Golden Rose prior to coming to Melbourne.
The Thousand Guineas was a much more satisfactory contest, the race run close to ideally for all involved, and it was Aloisia that relished the genuine tempo, staying on strongly to run to a clear new peak of 116.
A rating of 116 is up to scratch for a Thousand Guineas winner and, more importantly for punters with an eye to the future, it's a figure that makes her the clear number one seed heading to an Oaks that is shaping up as being fairly thin - the two fillies closes to Aloisia in early betting are Bring Me Roses (rated 102p) and Pinot rated 95.
Runner up Shoals matched her 112 from the Prelude while race favourite Alizee, who was rated 118 after winning the Flight Stakes in Sydney, failed to replicate that peak, running to 110.
The highest ratings on the card belonged to Caulfield Stakes 1-2 Gailo Chop and Joannes Vermeer along with the Toorak winner Tosen Stardom who all ran to 122.
The other performance of note on the card came from Invincible Star who hosed up in the fillies sprint.
There may not have been a great deal behind her but she hammered them from the front, returning a Timeform rating of 110p. The clock says this performance didn't flatter Invincible Star at all and she's well worth following into better races.
