October
FebruaryShorter, sweeter
Adrian Dunn (25/1) laments the waning in quality of the Group 2 Australia Stakes but seems to suggest that little can be done, with no obvious alternative home available on the calendar.
I’d suggest it can be revitalised without the need to find a new date — indeed, the Australia Day weekend seems an appropriate home for a race of that name.
My idea is simply to shorten the Australia Stakes to 1000 metres. Such a move would make it a viable pipe-opener for the Lightning Stakes over that distance three weeks later.
At present the Kensington Stakes is run over 1000 metres a week before the Australia Stakes, which might mean the two races competing for the same horses.
Again, a simple solution: move the Kensington Stakes to Flemington’s pre-Christmas Saturday meeting.
That meeting, run this season on December 21, did not include a stakes race. The addition of the Kensington Stakes would not only add interest to that card, it would serve as a logical lead-up to the Standish Handicap over 1200 metres a couple of weeks later.
It’s not as if Moonee Valley really needs another weight-for-age race over 1200 metres. Of its four Group 1 events, three are run under precisely those conditions, including the Moir — which was lengthened from 1000 metres in 2007.
Castlemaine (Vic)