3 minute read
Chris Scholtz previews the 2021 Melbourne Cup, offering the positives and negatives that surround the favourite Incentivise.
It's obvious this a unique Melbourne Cup year.
Clearly COVID and other issues have depleted the northern hemisphere numbers contesting the race. Many will say that's a good thing but it also raises the view that because of it we have a substandard Cup with lesser performed local stayers making up the numbers.
Only three internationals are left in the field – last year's winner Twilight Payment for Joseph O'Brien, Andrew Balding's Spanish Mission and Sir Lucan, who will be racing for the Waterhosue/Bott stable.
Yet in the absence of a big international contingent we have one of the most intriguing Melbourne Cup scenarios in years as the punting public is agog over the boom race favourite Incentivise, a horse who just a few months ago was emerging from restricted class races on provincial tracks in Queensland.
This freakish stayer goes to Flemington on Tuesday seeking his 10th successive win – a rare challenge at any time let alone in a Melbourne Cup!
At his current odds he will go to the post the shortest priced favourite for a Melbourne Cup since Phar Lap's odds on victory in 1930.
Incentivise's short odds reflect the impact he has made winning his last nine starts by a combined total of more than 44 lengths as he has made the climb from restricted country class to multiple Group One winner.
However he now takes on the gruelling two miles at Flemington that still makes the Melbourne Cup the most demanding race in Australia and will encourage many to question whether his fairytale run can continue.
In the Caulfield Cup two weeks ago Incentivise returned a Timeform rating of 129, a rarified peak figure that placed him in elite company, well justified given the visual authority of his win backed up by his time on the clock.
His finishing surge saw him run the fastest last 400m and fastest last 200m in the race. Nothing in the field was able to take ground off him over the last 200m, something you will rarely - if ever - see in a Caulfield Cup.
What is astounding from a ratings perspective is his meteoric upward spiral through his last six wins. His ratings rise is something only the best of the best are capable of achieving.
Consider that when he was winning his first metropolitan race at Eagle Farm in May he returned a Timeform rating of 105, a good figure but still a long way from where he sits now.
He then went to 107 at his next start then jumped to 117 when he won the Tatts Cup by 12 lengths. He then rose to 122 in his first G1 win in the Makybe Diva at Flemington and then 124 in the Turnbull Stakes.
And finally he gets to 129 in the Caulfield Cup – simply amazing stuff!
With thanks to Adam Blencowe for his historic analysis, Incentivise's Caulfield Cup rating places him among the best three Caulfield Cup winners of modern times. Northerly rated 128 in the 2002 Caulfield Cup and Might And Power ran to 130 in his famous 1997 win.
If you want more evidence to support why Incentivise is truly the new star of the Australian turf consider that his Caulfield Cup rating of 129 rated six pounds above the figure State Of Rest (123) returned winning last Saturday's Cox Plate at Moonee Valley.
The only other time this century that a Caulfield Cup winner has rated higher than the Cox Plate winner in the same year was in 2012 when Dunaden - coincidently the winner of the Melbourne Cup in 2011 - sat a couple of pounds above the Cox Plate winner Ocean Park.
What these figures and comparisons tell you is that Incentivise would have won the Cox Plate last weekend by a couple of panels if they had taken that route.
You also have to consider peripheral indicators such as Incentivise's Caulfield Cup starting price of $2.30, odds that reflected overwhelming betting confidence in his chances as he went to the post as the shortest priced favourite in a Caulfield Cup since Tobin Bronze started in the red at 11/8 on in 1966.
Tobin Bronze finished sixth which places Incentivise behind only the great champions Tulloch, the 1957 winner at 6/4 on, and the 1926 winner Manfred at 5/4, as the shorted priced winning favourites in Caulfield Cup history.
Furthermore his Caulfield Cup winning margin of 3.5 lengths has only been bettered only twice in the last 50 years by Might And Power's 7.5 lengths romp in 1997 and the five lengths blitz by Gurner's Lane in 1982.
Both those great stayers went on to win the Melbourne Cup in the same year, so the question you have to ask is Incentivise capable of joining such an elite club and become the first horse in 20 years, since Ethereal in 2001, to complete the Cups double.
The answer may lie in a comparison of the weights and penalties Gurner's Lane and Might And Power carried in the Melbourne Cup after their Caulfield wins.
In 1982 Gurner's Lane won the Caulfield Cup under 53.5kg and was penalised 2.5kg for the Melbourne Cup where he carried 56kg, thanks to Mick Dittman taking that memorable rails run to lift him to a narrow win over the champion Kingston Town, who was anchored by the topweight of 59kg and that much talked about ride by Malcolm Johnston.
In 1997 Might And Power was bumped 3.5kg for his record Caulfield Cup win, going from 52.5kg to 56kg. Jim Cassidy rode him from the front like he did at Caulfield and he just lasted to win by a nose from Doriemus – the 1995 Melbourne Cup winner who was carrying 57.5kg and giving Might And Power 1.5kg.
In this year's Caulfield Cup Incentivise carried 55.5kg – more weight than both Gurner's Lane and Might And Power- and despite the dominant authority of his win he received a Melbourne Cup penalty of only 1.5kg.
He now carries 57kg in a race that is now run under a greatly compressed weight scale with much higher minimum weights than in the 1980s and 90s.
On that basis it's easy to conclude that the handicapper has been very lenient with Inventivise, especially when you take into account that there is not a local stayer in this year's field who would hold a candle to Kingston Town or Doriemus.
His lenient penalty becomes more relevant when you consider the Caulfield Cup runner-up Nonconformist is not in this year's Cup field, leaving Persan – beaten 5.25 lengths into third - as the horse lining up Tuesday who finished closest to Incentivise at Caulfield.
Clearly, when aligning the weights and the beaten margins, it becomes almost impossible to mount a case for any horse that finished behind Incentivise at Caulfield being capable of turning the tables on him on Tuesday.
That only adds to the mountain of positives for the favourite – but there are some negatives.
Apart from Makybe Diva in the third of her Melbourne Cup wins in 2005 when she carried 58kg, Incentivise will become the first horse since Gold And Black in 1977 to carry 57kg or more if successful.
Combined with his awkward barrier draw – from gate 16 there is a big risk Brett Prebble may be trapped wide with a number of go forward horses drawn underneath him – the question of whether he can sustain his stamina over the extra 800 metres under 57kg comes into play, especially when his bloodlines say that he really should have been struggling in any race longer than 2000m.
Breeding buffs will tell you his pedigree is all speed on both sides. He is a decendant of Danehill by a son of Snitzel while his dam is an Iglesia mare – a cross that reads more like an ideal pedigree for a Newmarket Handicap or Everest sprinter.
Admittedly his sire Shamus Award won a Cox Plate and has a couple of Queensland classic winners but Incentivise's dam Miss Argyle has the noted speed sires Last Tycoon, Marscay and Head Over Heels close up in her family. For the record she was retired as a maiden after just two starts over 1000m and 1200m.
Incentivise has also been winning in Melbourne on genuine soft tracks but that won't be the case on Tuesday if the forecasters have their weather predictions of fine and sunny weather right – but how would you know in a city that can throw up four seasons in one day!
Then there's the looming spectre of the northern hemisphere-trained raiders. We know full well how much the overseas trained stayers have dominated the Cup over the last decade with 22 of the last 33 placegetters coming from UK, Irish or European stables.
The northern hemisphere contingent might be down on numbers this year but last year's winner Twilight Payment and Spanish Mission are genuine high quality stayers with all the right credentials to recommend them on Tuesday.
Last year's winner Twilight Payment is deservedly carrying the top weight of 58kg and is at some disadvantage with 2.5kg more than he carried 12 months ago when recorded the second fastest winning time in 30 years.
Don't forget he is a seasoned traveller as this his is his third crack at the Cup after finishing 11th in his first attempt in 2019.
He has raced five times since last November and after some negative reports midyear that he wouldn't be coming earned his return visit with a win in the St Leger Trial and a third in the Irish St Leger at The Curragh at his last two starts, carrying 62kg in both races.
Nobody will miss the fact that he was third in last year's Irish St Leger before winning at Flemington so it's hard to deny that he is not on an identical track.
But there is a big negative and that's his age. Being a 9YO penalises him considerably as no horse of that vintage has won a Melbourne Cup in its 164 year history – but we have learned that you should never underestimate the Joseph O'Brien/Lloyd Williams factor with last year's winning jockey Jye McNeil reuniting for the repeat.
Spanish Mission is a US bred 5YO entire with six wins and five placings from 18 starts at distances from 2000 to 3600m and a definite liking for firm tracks.
He also is a seasoned traveller having raced in the UK, USA, Dubai and Saudi Arabia. The Melbourne Cup became his target race after his third in the G1 Ascot Gold Cup over 40000 metres in June where at level weights of 58kg he finished ahead of the champion stayer Stradivarious with Twilight Payment a well beaten ninth.
He also won the G2 Yorkshire Cup over 2780m this year under 60kg and topped off his prep for his Australian trip finishing a head second to Stradivarious, again at level weights, in the G2 Lonsdale Stakes at York in August when they went head and head and beat the other two runners by lengths.
He also has beaten home the 2018 Melbourne Cup winner Cross Counter and this year's Sydney Cup winner Selino in Group races in England over the last 15 months.
With no overseas jockeys flying in for the Cup this year his trainer Andrew Balding was on the front foot early to book Craig Williams as his rider. He gain plenty from having the expererience of Williams, the Cup winner two years ago on Vow And Declare, in the saddle.
The figures also say Australia's best mare Verry Elleegant – a luckless seventh last year after a poor ride and certain to respond to the return of James McDonald as her rider on Tuesday - and a brace of lightweights that bypassed the Caulfield Cup, such as the Bart Cummings winner Grand Promenade, Geelong Cup winner Tralee Rose, Floating Artist and Saturday's Hotham winner Great House, are all genuine first four chances.
They definitely bring the X factor to the Cup.
Punting is all about getting value at the right price and with the expectation of fair track conditions on Tuesday, I could not possibly take the skinny odds on offer about the favourite.
I guarantee that any bookmaker worth his salt as a gambler, from the big corporates right down to the small country bookies working at bush meetings across Australia on Tuesday, will be eager to fill their bags and have Incentivise run as a loser in their Cup book.
MY MELBOURNE CUP PLAYS
VALUE BETS
Verry Elleegant; Grand Promenade; Tralee Rose; Great House
BOX TRIFECTA/FIRST 4
Twilight Payment (1); Incentivise (2); Spanish Mission (3); Verry Elleegant (4); Grand Promenade (16); Tralee Rose (21); Floating Artist (22); Great House (23)
