October
OctoberToo hard, too early
The quality of the horses contesting this year’s Caulfield Cup was surely of concern. Out of interest, I went back and looked at the fields for the latest Victoria and Australian derbies to see what had happened to our staying three-year-olds of last season.
I counted 28 different horses which contested the latest running of those two derbies, horses that are now our spring four-year-olds. Only Shootoff (Victoria Derby) and Domesky (Australian Derby) contested the Caulfield Cup, advertised as the richest 2400m race in the world.
What happened to all the other derby starters? It was interesting to find that a number of these four-year-olds aren’t even in training. Where have they gone?
In a recent edition of Winning Post I noticed an advertisement for a two-year-old that was to be sold at a forthcoming Magic Millions sale. Apparently this youngster could cover 200m in 10.2 seconds.
Given that the horse has barely turned two, this seems to be pushing a young horse pretty hard.
I can’t help wondering if the horses we’re breeding and preparing are going to last the distance. If not, we’ll have to keep importing stayers.
This doesn’t seem to be a positive mood for the Australian thoroughbred industry.
Carlton North (Vic)