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Letter of the Week

Get used to it

Where has Kevin Arthurson (31/10) been for the past 27 years?
Horses have been coming from Europe and Japan to win our major races without a lead-up run in Australia since Vintage Crop in 1993.
They’ve been crossing the Atlantic to do the same thing for even longer.
Hong Kong’s big December raceday, one of the most successful meetings on the global calendar, is based entirely on horses coming from jurisdictions around the world to take on the locals, sight unseen.
The arrival of overseas horses makes punting tougher, but not as tough as in the 1990s. We can watch replays on the net, and many of these runners have form lines that tie in with horses that have raced here.
Serious students should also be familiar with which European races tend to produce horses that are competitive in our majors.
Needless to say, the raiders also result in healthier odds for those punters who can be bothered doing the form.
Imagine Tuesday’s Melbourne Cup without them — there would have been three chances: Surprise Baby, Verry Elleegant and Russian Camelot.
Some foreign horses still do have a lead-up run in Australia. In fact, between Vintage Crop (1993) and Rekindling (2017) no horse won the Melbourne Cup without having had a run here first.
But European horses are trained differently and some of them are at their peak fresh, even over staying trips.
To force these horses to have a run in Australia before tackling a major race would be patently unfair.
Either we want to be part of global racing or we don’t. If we do, we’d better get used to the occasional foreign horse winning at its first run here.

Dale Scott
Cremorne (Vic)
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