Winning Post

This week in Winning Post

This week's Winning Post will be available online here from 3pm AEDT Thursday.

Australasia's weight-for-age championship is here, with a new, one-off venue (Flemington) as Sir Delius looks to become the first winner of the great race for training legend Gai Waterhouse.

The Drummond Golf Vase for the derby hopefuls, the Fillies Classic, the Crystal Mile and the Moonee Valley Gold Cup are on the undercard, while at Randwick the features are the Group 1 $2 million Spring Champion, the $2 million Invitation for fillies and mares and the $1 million Callander-Presnell for the three-year-old milers.

The weekend kicks off with The Valley's Cox Plate eve card at Cranbourne on Friday night, while Sunday's highlights include cup days at Sale and Coonabarabran. We've got full form guides for all three.

Our form coverage kicks off on Friday with a full form guide for The Valley (plus Launceston in the Tassie edition), as well as fields, colours and tips for the other Friday TAB meetings.

The metro racing this Saturday is at The Valley in Melbourne, Randwick in NSW, Morphettville in SA, Doomben in Brisbane and Ascot in Perth.

Winning Post carries full-colour liftout guides for all those meetings plus bet365 Yarra Valley (Vic/SA edition), Kembla Grange (NSW edition) and Gold Coast (Qld edition), as well as fields, tips, ratings and/or colours for other TAB Saturday cards.

On Sunday we've got liftout formguides for two more TAB meetings as well as fields, ratings, tips and colours for a stack more Sunday and Monday programs.

Don't forget Winning Post now carries trackwork reports for all four Melbourne training tracks, all three in Sydney, Morphettville in Adelaide and a general Brisbane report.

Away from the form, we've got news columns from NSW, six Victorian districts, SA and Tasmania.

Our readers have their say on page 5, while elsewhere in the book Shane Templeton reminisces, Matt Stewart covers the big issues of the day and Paul Richards presents his unique take on the sport.

s available Thursday afternoon online ($5), the crack of dawn Friday in shops.

... More

Mountain to climb .................................................................................................................................................

Download the calendar .................................................................................................................................................

Tasmania: Trainer's hopes turn to Graveyard .................................................................................................................................................

Wimmera: Cup coup caps Bobbin's big day .................................................................................................................................................

NSW country: Wide gate no worry for fresh Sensation .................................................................................................................................................

More Stories

Inside Winning Post October 17 edition you'll find liftout form guides for:

Friday:

The Valley @ Cranbourne, Launceston (Tas edition)

Saturday:

The Valley @ Flemington, Randwick, Morphettville, Doomben, Ascot, Yarra Valley (Vic/SA/Tas edition), Kembla Grange (NSW edition), Gold Coast (Qld edition)

Sunday:

Sale, Coonabarabran

Eye Catchers

Each week Paul Richards identifies horses from recent race meetings that he believes are ready to win. Here we update you when they are about to have their next start.

Caulfield Saturday - R4 N13 I Am Aria 2nd

Caulfield Saturday - R6 N5 Bev's Nine 3rd

Caulfield Saturday - R10 N9 Gold Medallist SCR

Royal Randwick Saturday - R6 N12 Charm Stone 4th

Royal Randwick Saturday - R6 N19 Signor Tortoni 13th

Royal Randwick Saturday - R7 N11 Savvy Hallie 12th

Results

Letter of the Week

Over the Hill

Congratulations to the connections of Attrition and Land Legend, but if last Saturday taught us anything it’s that we don’t have the depth of high-quality middle-distance horses in Australia to justify a $1 million Group 1 over 2000 metres and a $2 million Group 2 over 1900 metres, both at weight-for-age, on the same day in mid-October.
As it transpired, this year’s Might And Power was a classic — thanks mainly to the sporting decision of Peter Moody, Katherine Coleman and Fred Noffke to run Sheza Alibi in it.
Let’s hope the gutbusting run hasn’t ruined her campaign.
But six runners this year and four last year (in a much duller race) is far from an ideal situation.
As for the Hill Stakes, Attrition’s win is a great story and well done to all concerned, but surely this is the weakest $2 million race on the calendar.
Attrition was beaten 16 times between winning it in 2024 and winning it last Saturday. And his only quinella finish in that period was in the Hill Stakes of 2025!
So weak was last Saturday’s field that Lindermann — good horse, no champion — started the $1.70 favourite after getting beaten nine lengths by Birdman.
So weak was it that Militarize, one of the greatest non-winners in Australian racing and coming off 25 straight defeats, started second favourite.
It would literally be more interesting next year if they scrapped it and put on a $2 million match race between Lindermann and Attrition.

Mitch Matheson
Castlemaine (Vic)