October
MarchSwitch the trips
What a dismal field has been assembled for this Saturday’s Tancred Stakes.
Don’t get me wrong — I’m a huge fan of Single Gaze and her team, I’d love her to jag that big Group 1 and this might be the best chance she’ll get. But outside that fairytale storyline, the race looks put on for Gailo Chop if he gets the 2400 metres or a Lloyd Williams horse if he doesn’t.
Gailo Chop and Almandin are both solid Group 1 citizens, but they’re not exactly Better Loosen Up and Super Impose. A $1.5 million weight-for-age Group 1 deserves more strength in depth.
Of course, it is preposterous programming that sees the Tancred run over 2400 metres a fortnight before the $4 million Queen Elizabeth at 2000 metres.
But with Winx always likely to tackle the Queen Elizabeth again, you’d have thought the Tancred might have been the race of choice for weight-for-agers keen to avoid her.
It’s similarly illogical that the Ranvet is run the week before the Tancred. Luckily for the ATC, the Ranvet quinella is likely to back up. How bad would the Tancred have been without those two?
After the success of the inaugural Everest day last spring, the solution is staring the ATC in the face.
Switch the Tancred and Queen Elizabeth distances, boost the Tancred prizmoney to $2 million and move the Ranvet to Everest day — preferably also with a $2 million purse — to replace the Craven Plate, where it would act as the ideal Group 1 Cox Plate lead-up.
Killarney Heights (NSW)