3 minute read
Timeform Recap of the 2018 Caulfield Guineas won by The Autumn Sun.
Caulfield Guineas Day is invariably a fantastic day of racing and it certainly delivered in 2018 with a vintage Guineas winner on of several spring-shaping performances.
The Autumn Sun has been strong across all measures from his debut back in April and the Caulfield Guineas looked to be the culmination of all that promise into what may prove a career-defining masterpiece.
His closing burst to win The Golden Rose from an improbable position pointed to him being lengths better than what was waiting for him in Melbourne but he still had to turn up and walk the walk. He did just that, earning himself a Timeform rating of 126 in the process - as high as any Guineas performance in recent history.
The time was a good one, for all that it came in shy of his Golden Rose figure. But the Guineas win came with far more in hand. In fact, the winning margin of 4.5 lengths is the widest in the Guineas since the pattern was introduced in 1979.
Whobegotyou won the 2008 Guineas by 3.3 lengths (and was also rated 126) while Red Anchor and Sovereign Red won the 1984 and 1980 Guineas by 3 lengths.
The lone filly in the race, Oohood, finished on well but there was nothing in the sectionals to suggest that the final result was anything but a true reflection of the horses on the day.
A rating of 126 wasn't good enough to go home as the highest rated performance on the day, however, with Epsom-winner Hartnell returning a rating of 127 running second in the Toorak.
It's not quite a return to the absolute best of Hartnell but his Epsom and Toorak efforts, giving plenty of weight to plenty of good horses, are not far from it and show that Hartnell remains as good as anything in town that isn't named Winx.
It was (loosely) suggested that highly-rated international visitor Benbatl could provide stiff opposition for Winx in the upcoming Cox Plate after he dug in strongly to hold off fellow Godolphin traveller Blair House in the Caulfield Stakes.
Good as he was a rating of 125 there still leaves him some way short of what would be required against an on-song Winx and as we pointed out following her Turnbull success - which you can read here - all the signs are there that the great mare is going as well as ever.
There had also been suggestion that The Autumn Sun would prove stiff competition for his illustrious stablemate at Moonee Valley in two weeks time but, as good as The Autumn Sun, Benbatl and Hartnell all were on Saturday, they are yet to achieve anything that points to them being anything more than fodder for an on-song Winx on Cox Plate Day.
