November 2018 – Page 9 – Racing Review

Australian Cup Ante-Post Big Race Preview

Avilius has been installed as the clear favourite to triumph in the Australian Cup after storming to victory in the Group 3 Carlyon Cup earlier this month. James Cummings’ galloper looks primed to compete in the biggest races in the country this coming spring, but the Australian Cup has always been his autumn target. He is in superb form and he will take some stopping in the big race, but competition will be fierce and it promises to be an enthralling contest.

The Group 1 Australian Cup is one of the most important races in the Melbourne Autumn Racing Carnival. With a prize purse of $1.5 million, it is also the joint-richest, while the prestige associated with winning it is huge. It takes place over 2000m at Flemington and it is known as the autumn equivalent of the Cox Plate. It is a weight for age race for horses aged three and above, and seasoned gallopers have had huge success here over the years.

The Australian Cup has a long and illustrious history, having been inaugurated in 1863, when Barwon held on for victory over 18 furlongs (3621m). It was shortened to 2000m in the early 1960s to attract talented middle distance gallopers and it has remained a highlight in the racing calendar ever since. True titans of the sport have won this race since the turn of the century, including Makybe Diva, Northerly, Lonhro, Zipping and Shocking. The leading lights in Victoria and further afield will bid to join that great pantheon on March 9 this year.

It takes place on Super Saturday, a day that is always popular among punters as it also includes the Group 1 Newmarket Stakes. Both are huge races, but the Australian Cup is the feature race of the day and it will generate huge interest across the country. Last year it generated a huge media buzz after $61roughie Harlem pulled off one of the biggest upsets in the race’s history.

The previous year had seen $4.25 favourite Humidor triumph with a classy performance, and many punters expected 2018 favourite Gailo Chop to deliver in similar style. They lumped on Darren Weir’s gelding and he went off at $2.60 from barrier 10. Gailo Chop looked to have the race in the bag when he hit the front at the 300m mark, but Harlem, Lindsay Park’s French raider, sneaked up the inside rail and managed to savage the line in sensational fashion to claim an unlikely win.

It was the roughest Australian Cup result since Dandy Andy defied odds of $125 back in 1988. “Closer to the fence is like lightning,” said jockey Michael Walker. “I had a beautiful run the whole way.” The most successful barriers over the last 35 years are actually 7 and 8, which have each yielded five winners. However, the outside barriers are the least successful, and many riders will be keen to stick to that inside rail at the 2019 Australian Cup.

Gailo Chop is not the only short-priced favourite to be vanquished, as Jeune ($1.66), Theseo ($1.80), Northerly ($1.80), Vo Rogue ($2), Shiva’s Revenge ($2.20) and Princess Coup have all finished second in recent times. Yet a number of big favourites have won, including Northerly and Vo Rogue. Veandercross won at just $1.36, the shortest price in recent memory, but Bonecrusher was $1.44, Better Loosen Up was $1.73, Fiorente was $1.90 and Lonhro was $2, so punters will not be put off if the price on Avilius drops further.

Cummings is giddy with excitement about the five-year-old’s prospects this year and beyond. “He’s a pretty serious horse that I think is capable of graduating to weight-for-age,” he said after the Carlyon Cup win. “The Australian Cup is his autumn target. We’ll regroup after that but I am of the view that a light autumn will suit the horse. He’s an extremely good addition to our stable and we’re extremely grateful to have him and we want to look after him. He kept motoring to the line in good fashion. He’s got a great amount of heart about him and good to see him win first-up over 1600 metres.”

Avilius was third last in the field of 10 in that race and looked at a serious disadvantage due to the track pattern, but Kerrin McEvoy got to work on him and he responded with a brilliant burst of pace to overhaul the leaders. He ended up winning by three-quarters of a length from Sikandarabad and Night’s Watch, and Cummings said he has now recovered from being knocked down in the Melbourne Cup.

A look at the horse racing betting at Punters will tell you that Avilius is the clear favourite to triumph in the Australian Cup, but the field is stacked with talent. There were 33 horses left standing after the first acceptances, with six entries each for stars like Park and Waller, along with a strong contingent of runners that have left the Darren Weir stables. Chief among them is second favourite Night’s Watch, who lost out to Avilius in the Carlyon Cup but is still highly regarded. The field is studded with superstar talent, including Johannes Vermeer, Alizee, Land Of Plenty, Extra Brut and Rekindling, so it is sure to be an engrossing race.

The Peter Young Stakes is the primary lead up for the Australian Cup, as 13 of the last 17 winners have come through that race. That race takes place on Saturday and it will feature the likes of Avilius, Night’s Watch and Harlem, so it is bound to affect the odds on the Australian Cup. The Group 2 contest at Caulfield has produced more Australian Cup winners than any other race, with the likes of Fiorente and Lonhro completing the double. It is a big event in its own right, but the Australian Cup is the key distance event in Victoria this autumn and it should prove to be another fascinating race.

Trainers

Charlie Appleby

Charlie Appleby, 43, is a fairly recent addition to the training ranks, having been chosen by Sheikh Mohammed to take over the training licence at Moulton Paddocks, Newmarket from the disgraced Mahmood Al Zarooni, who was ‘warned off’ for eight years after several of his horses tested positive for anabolic steroids in 2013.

However, Appleby had previously worked for Godolphin for 15 years in various capacities, including as assistant trainer to Al Zarooni, Saeed bin Suroor and David Loder, so was hardly wet behind the ears when it came to preparing race horses to compete.

Appleby is based at Moulton Paddocks during the British Flat season and at Marmoom Stables, in the desert south of Dubai, during the British winter. Having embarked upon a training career, in his own right, in July, 2013, he saddled his first Grade 1 winner in November that same year, when Outstrip lead close home to win the Breeders’ Cup Juvenile Turf at Santa Anita Park in California. He saddled his first domestic Group 1 winner, Charming Thought, in the Middle Park Stakes at Newmarket, less than a year later and the following summer opened his account at Royal Ascot, when Space Age made most of the running to beat 16 rivals in the King George V Stakes.

Appleby recorded another high-profile success with Hawkbill in the Coral-Eclipse Stakes at Sandown in 2016 and, in 2018, raised the bar again with three more winners at the highest level. The most notable of them, of course, was Masar, who reversed 2,000 Guineas form with Saxon Warrior to win the Derby at Epsom. In so doing, the son of New Approach provided Appleby with his first Classic winner and Godolphin with its first Derby winner. Further victories for Blue Point in the King’s Stand Stakes at Royal Ascot and Wild Illusion in the Nassau Stakes at Glorious Goodwood contributed to his most successful season so far, financially, with £3.69 million in prize money at the time of writing. With over 500 winners to his name in his short career, Appleby looks bound for plenty more success in the future.

Trainers

Dan Skelton

Dan Skelton is, of course, the eldest son of Olympic show jumper Nick Skelton but, since embarking on a training career in 2013, has quickly established himself as a leading exponent of the art, or science, of preparing National Hunt horses. Testament to his progress through the training ranks in a short space of time is that, at the time of writing, he has just broken the record, previously held by Martin Pipe, for the fastest hundred winners in a National Hunt season.

His hundredth winner of 2018/19 was Sam Red, ridden by William Marshall, in an amateur riders’ handicap chase at Cheltenham on October 26, over a week ahead of the previous best set by the 15-time Champion Trainer on November 3, 2001. Indeed, at the time of writing, Skelton has saddled 104 winners, more than double the number sent out by his nearest pursuer, Peter Bowen, and his total prize money, which is approaching £850,000, gives him a lead of nearly £400,000 in the National Hunt Trainers’ Championship.

Dan Skelton spent nine years as assistant trainer to Paul Nicholls at Manor Farm Stables in Ditcheat, Somerset before starting out on his own at Lodge Hill Stables, a training centre purpose-built by his father, Nick, at Alcester in the heart of rural Warwickshire. Skelton Jnr. began his training career with just a dozen horses, but saddled 27 winners in his first season – notably including Willow’s Saviour in The Ladbroke at Ascot – and hasn’t really looked back.

In 2015/16, he saddled over a hundred winners in a season, and earned over £1 million in total prize money, for the first time and in 2017/18 enjoyed his most successful season so far, with 156 winners and £1.74 million in total prize money. As far as the Cheltenham Festival is concerned, Skelton has the distinction of winning the County Handicap Hurdle – arguably the most competitive race in the National Hunt calendar – twice, with Superb Story in 2016 and Mohaayed in 2018. All that’s missing from his impressive CV is a Grade 1 winner but, granted his meteoric rise to the top of his profession, that surely is just a matter of time.

Trainers

Sir Michael Stoute

Were it not for the late Julian Wilson, Barbadian Sir Michael Stoute – he was awarded a knighthood for services to tourism and sport in his native country in 1998 – may well have become BBC television racing correspondent rather than multiple champion trainer. In November, 1965, the 19-year-old Stoute made a shortlist of six candidates who travelled to Newbury racecourse for final screen tests, but the powers that be preferred the patricianly, slightly raffish, style of Wilson, leaving the young man to find fame elsewhere in the racing world.

Stoute subsequently served as assistant trainer to Hubert Patrick ‘Pat’ Rohan in Malton, Yorkshire for three years. In 1968, he moved to Newmarket and, having abandoned his original intention of returning to the Caribbean, also served as assistant trainer to Douglas Smith and Harry Thomson ‘Tom’ Jones before renting a yard and setting up on his own, with just 15 horses, in 1972. He saddled his first winner, Sandal, owned by his father, at Newmarket in April that year and so embarked upon a brilliant career that has, so far, spanned five decades.

Stoute, now 73, can rightly be considered one of the all-time greats of British Flat racing. He has been Champion Trainer ten times and won a total of 14 British Classic races, including the 2,000 Guineas five times, the 1,000 Guineas twice, the Derby five times, the Oaks twice and the St. Leger once. In June, 2018, Stoute also became the all-time leading trainer at Royal Ascot; the victory of Poet’s Word over hot favourite Cracksman in the Prince of Wales’s Stakes took his career total to 76, beating the previous record of 75 set by the late Sir Henry Cecil. Stoute has also recorded numerous high-profile victories around the world, including the Breeders’ Cup Turf five times, the Japan Cup twice, the Dubai World Cup and the Prix de l’Arc de Triomphe.

Nowadays based at Freemason Stables and Beech Hurst Stables, on either side of the Bury Road in Newmarket, Stoute will always be remembered as the trainer of Shergar. Stoute describes Shergar – a runaway, 10-length winner of the Derby in 1981, but subsequently kidnapped, probably by the IRA, and never found – as “the most talented middle-distance horse I have ever trained.” However, his most satisfying training performance, he says, was saddling Pilsudski and Singspiel to finish first and second in the Breeders’ Cup Turf at Woodbine Racetrack in 1996.