October
DecemberMiles in the legs
“Where has Kevin Arthurson been for the past 27 years?” asks Dale Scott (7/11).
He points out that some overseas horses do have an Australian lead-up run before the Melbourne Cup. I would prefer they all did — not for the benefit of the owners but for us, the people. Reason? That one or two runs prior to the Melbourne Cup may just show prospective punters if the overseas horse has got the mettle to take the Cup.
My friends still talk of Rain Lover winning consecutive Cups in 1968 and ’69 after a weight-for-age run on the Saturday prior.
For all those decades, it was the norm for Melbourne Cup runners to have a series of lead-up runs. Famously, cups king Bart Cummings insisted the best preparation involved running at least 10,000 metres in races prior to the Cup.
And guess what? There weren’t the injuries to horses back then that we are seeing now.
This is not necessarily cause and effect. The horse that suffered a fatal injury in this year’s Melbourne Cup, Anthony Van Dyck, had run (well) in the Caulfield Cup.
To my mind hard tracks are the problem. We must have tracks on the slower side of good for our longer races.
Ocean Grove