A WEEKLY REVIEW: The Good The Bad The Ugly (Melbourne Cup Special)

Buckeroo for mine in the Melbourne Cup at Flemington on Tuesday to assist the Chris Waller ascendency, challenged by Ciaron Maher.

Yes Maher took the major Flemington double on Saturday before 86,500 with the slick Victoria Derby winner Observer and the tearaway Pride Of Jenni in the Empire Rose as well as the remarkable Jimmysstar (Russell Balding) at Royal Randwick.

Waller, though, produced budding champion Autumn Glow in Sydney, winning the $10 million Golden Eagle, and maintains a steady stream of better than top horses.

Only 18,569, some chasing love (a special promotion), went to Randwick but with the Waller mare they were in the company of greatness. Jimmysstar and Empire Rose were GOOD, Observer beat common opposition but Autumn Glow was superior.

With the Melbourne Cup already on their score sheet, Waller and Maher are qualified two-mile trainers, having the expertise to prepare a stayer to be fully tuned and at their peak for the first Tuesday in November. It’s special. Consider Bart Cummings.

Maher will depend on Middle Earth, Smokin’ Romans, and Royal Supremacy but Waller has a stronger team. Waller’s Land Legend, and More Felons are difficult to recommend. However River Of Stars, and Valiant King have supporters. Still Buckeroo is the pea with the class tick for his close second to stablemate the outstanding Via Sistina in the Cox Plate (2020m) at Moonee Valley recently.

The query about Buckeroo is the 3200 metres under 57kg. In the corresponding race last year Buckaroo, with Joao Moreira aboard, had 54.5kg and ended ninth, beaten 3. 5 lengths in a real eye sore. Moreira gave an impossible start, cut the gelding lose too early, was high, wide and anything but handsome.

Buckeroo had to wilt which he did over the final 50 metres. On Tuesday the gelding has the navigation of the astute Craig Williams. Jockeys, like trainers, play an import role in the Big One. Battlers win but they don’t transmit that confident feeling when placing your bet. Despite the handicap and 12 launch Williams will better utilise the horse power of Buckeroo.

The main dangers to him are stablemate River Of Stars, Half Yours, and Vauban. River Of Stars gets he thumbs up from Rob Waterhouse, bookmaker and top credential analyst.

“The best way to find the Melbourne Cup winner is to wipe all those Rob Waterhouse doesn’t fancy,” Bundamba Slim, now gone, would pontificate. Alas Waterhouse is restricted in what he will gamble against this year.

“I don’t fancy Presage Nocturne,” he commented. “Half Century is a risk at the distance but not a savage lay. River Of Stars was second to Half Century and I give her a good chance.”

River Of Stars ($20) has more upside than the shorter priced Valiant King ($8), who has only won two races.

Half Yours is true blue, not Godolphin, but in the John Williamson tradition, being only Aussie bred in the staying test. The five-year-old looked good in the Caulfield Cup in which the Jamie Melham (formerly Kah) perch stood out. She was a joy to watch. More of the same can get Half Yours home.

Perhaps the trainers of Half Yours, Tony and Calvin McEvoy, don’t have a Melbourne Cup history but father Tony learned the trade, including knack with stayers, under Col Hayes at Lindsay Park in South Australia.

And Vauban is elevated due to the Gai Waterhouse influence. She scores in Melbourne Cups and gets the best out of imports. Rob Waterhouse is tipping improvement from Vauban who flopped in the Caulfield Cup but his previous efforts this campaign were encouraging. Note gear changes: cross over nose band and tongue tie. From the two launch Blake Shinn should give him a sweet passage.

I am gambling against the imports: Alf Riffa, “I cannot wipe him” – Waterhouse, Chevalier Rose, Absurde, Flatten The Curve, Further, Parchment Party and Goodie Two Shoes. I will not support horses I don’t know. It can be expensive but old habits are hard to break.

So my four are BUCKAROO 1, River Of Stars 2, Vauban 3, Half Yours 4. Rob Waterhouse rates Torranzino the best outsider.

Being at Randwick and absent from Flemington on Melbourne Cup Day for the first time, apart from Covid, since 1978, will be BAD and The Golden Mingle, a Racing NSW promotion at Randwick on Saturday, was disappointing.

Wearing a badge, green was the colour, that reputedly guaranteed being importuned by a shapely filly or mare did not transmit for this aged cocktail cavalier.

Even when he took off his socks to get with the fashion all he received was ending up shin sore.

“Size and money, however, have not shielded racing from scrutiny,” the ABC story declared in keeping with equine Melbourne Cup casualties.

“A new generation of activists has put the sport’s social licence under pressure.”

Six out of seven Melbourne Cup casualties in recent decades was UGLY as was the breakdown of Dulcify in the 1979 Melbourne Cup.

“At the same time, the industry has begun moving swiftly to protect its image, systematically removing any footage that could provide activists with ammunition,” the ABC reported. 

If the ABC want to pursue the disaster angle so be it but Racing Victoria has taken steps to minimise the risk. Surely not having horses in distress plastered over television screens is a good policy, be it Victoria, New South Wales or Bullamakanka.

Horse Sense: “One day after trackwork we ran home together along James Ruse drive to Mr and Mrs Hawkes house. Legend will say James went one way and I went to another” wrote Mitchell Beadman about when he was a promising apprentice and had an association with James McDonald. Son of Darren, a champion hoop, Mitchell Beadman produced an excellent story in the Weekend Australian about his life and career changes to date.

“On Tuesday James will ride Meydaan, one of the leading fancies in the Melbourne Cup ….

“For me, at 35, in the shade, I am taking each day as it comes as a cadet for a south coast community newspaper in NSW.”