October
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This year’s Thousand Guineas attracted only eight starters, and it might have been lucky to get that many.
Five years out of seven, the Flight Stakes is run on the first Saturday in October, but not this year. Because of this, there were two weeks between the Flight and the Thousand Guineas, which increased the latter’s field size.
The question is, why is the Thousand Guineas being run on Caulfield Guineas day, a week after the Edward Manifold and (usually) a week after the Flight?
It is glaringly obvious that it should be run a week later, on Caulfield Cup day.
It seems to me that the Melbourne Racing club has lost interest in the Thousand Guineas. It is one of the key races of the spring, but the MRC seems unaware of that fact.
It is interesting that the English Two Thousand Guineas and Thousand Guineas (despite their names) offer the same prizemoney.
The Caulfield races are generally considered to be their Australian equivalents, but prizemoney for our males’ race is four times that of the fillies’ event.
In fact, on prizemoney the Thousand Guineas is not in the top 50 races in Australia. Ridiculous!
Frankston South (Vic)