No easy Rite Of Passage in Melbourne Cup
Rite Of Passage, the market leader for the Melbourne Cup, will have to prove himself the hard way at Flemington on November 2nd.
Dermot Weld’s gelding (pictured right), who beat Age Of Aquarius, has been allotted 57kg (which equates to 9st) for the two-mile handicap. Only one horse has carried more to win Australia’s most famous prize in the last 10 years when the legendary mare Makybe Diva won her third Cup under the steadier of 58kg (9st 2lb) in 2005. Weld, who has won the race twice before with with Vintage Crop in 1993 and Media Puzzle in 2002, also has Profound Beauty entered and she has 54kg (8st 7lb).
If Weld is the benchmark by which the European challenge is judged, then Luca Cumani has come agonisingly close to matching him. The Newmarket trainer was runner-up with Purple Moon in 2007, beaten a half-length, and Bauer 12 months later, who was touched off by as nose. Bauer, who has been off the track since with a tendon injury, could be one of four possible contenders for the year’s race. Cumani has Manighar 54kg (8st 7lb), Bauer 53.5kg (8st 6lb), Purple Moon 53.5kg and Drunken Sailor 53kg (8st 5lb) all still in the field.
Bauer is due to run at Salisbury tomorrow, in the Irish Thoroughbred Marketing "Persian Punch" Conditions Stakes, and Drunken Sailor underlined his chances when he won the Listed March Stakes at Goodwood on Saturday. Drunken Sailor, who got no run when he finished late to claim second in the Northumberland Plate and then got to the front too soon for his own good at York on his next run, showed that he can find the sort of finishing kick that could prove a potent weapon at Flemington. After the race Cumani’s wife, Sara, said: “He’s a real success story and on to Melbourne. He was really bought for Dubai in the winter – the owners who race horses in Dubai in the winter mainly. He was bought out of a field in Ireland, a little hairy thing last October. And he’s done nothing but improve since came here. He did well in Dubai in the winter and he’s just developed into a Melbourne Cup candidate.”
“The Northumberland Plate was the race that said it all. He had an unlucky trip there but ran a blinder. And then he should have won at York but we hit the front a bit too soon. Today the plan was not to hit the front too soon. He ticks all the boxes for Melbourne; he travels, you can put him where you want him in a race, he likes form ground, he’ll stay, he’s got a turn of foot – everything seems to be about right. We just need the draw now, please not in the car park where we were two years ago [when Bauer finished second].”
Other European runners who could figure are William Knight’s Illustrious Blue, the winner of the Group Two Goodwood Cup, gets in with 55kg (8st9lb), while with Michael Jarvis' Rainbow Peak and the John Gosden-trained King Of Wands both on 52.5kg (8st 4lb).
The Melbourne Cup figures prominently on the wish list of Sheikh Mohammed and Godolphin have set their stall out once more. Godolphin's record in the Melbourne Cup with 13 runners in the race since 1998 is three seconds - Central Park (1999), Give The Slip (2001), Crime Scene (2009) - and one third -Beekeeper (2002) – but not that vital winner. The leading lights in their latest venture Down Under are Cavalryman 57.5kg (9st 1lb) and Campanologist 56kg (8st 11lb), both trained by Saeed bin Suroor, and the Mahmood Al Zarooni-trained Claremont 52.5kg (8st 4lb).
There will, of course, be a strong home defence with Alandi, formerly trained by John Oxx, and Efficient, who beat Purple Moon in 2007, both topping the weights on 58kg (9st 2lb). However, history is against them as the last original topweight to win the race was Comic Court who carried 59.5kg (9st 5lb) to victory in 1950.
Shocking, the winner of the race 12 months ago, was given 57kg (9st) which is 6kg more than he carried to give trainer Mark Kavanagh his first winner in the race last year.
That still leaves Kavanagh the small matter of 12 victories behind Bart Cummings. The 82-year-old is currently recovering in a Sydney hospital after fracturing his pelvis in a fall at his home, but he has a strong hand once more for this year’s lead by Queensland Derby winner Dariana 51.5kg (8st 2lb),Cox Plate winner So You think 56kg (8st 11lb) and VRC Oaks winner Faint Perfume 52kg (8st 3lb).
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