RACING! Caufield Cup * Cox Plate * Melbourne Cup

Its that time of year again! And this year the Aussies are shitting themselves about the quality of the NZ horses making the trip over. It's well overdue, we've won next to nothing over there for YEARS

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This Saturday sees the running of the $2.5millionAUD Caufield Cup (2400m) in Melbourne, the traditional lead-up race to the Melbourne Cup. The aussies have their 'champion' horse Weekend Hussler(Yakkys Alias???) in the race, while the Kiwis are represented by Boundless, Nom Du Jeu & Red Ruler. I have been following Red Ruler (thanks for the $400 payout last week buddy!) and I think it's paying about $14 with the TAB and a VERY good chance of taking out the race. You poker winners, here's a good way to invest your winnings! The other 2 kiwis (Bl & NDJ) Are also really good chances, so it wouldn't surprise me to see a Kiwi Trifecta!

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Next Saturday (24th I think) is the $3millionAUD Cox Plate (2040m) at Moonee Valley in Melbourne. For those that don't know, this race is the 'championship' race of Australasia which draws the best horses and is VERY competitive. And this year, we have the best chance of winning since the Champion mare Sunline back in 99/00. The Horse is called Princess Coup and the Aussies are shit scared she'll take home the spoils I'm VERY excited about her chances and thanks to Aussie pig-headedness she's still paying $4 to win the race. IMO she should be at $2.50.

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On the first Tuesday of November we take in the $5million Melbourne Cup (3200m), Aussies biggest horse race (and arguably the world's). Its a little too early to make a call on this one until after the Caulfield Cup, but the 3 Kiwis in that race have to be a chance in the big one so long as they come through that race well. Will post back about this in due course.

Anyway to whet your appetites, here's a video of the $2millionNZD Kelt Stakes (2040m) raced 2 weeks ago at Hastings over the same distance as the Cox Plate. Princess Coup wins (an unbelievable run from the back of the field) and my Quinella comes in with Red Ruler finishing second. Nom Du Jeu and Boundless are close up 3rd and 4th respectively, so you can see why these 4 all have big Aussie spring aspirations!

Princess Coup is in the blue with red cap, settles near the back...

kiwi horse won the Melbourne cup last year didnt it?

Efficient. Kiwi-bred, yup. Trained by a kiwi in Aussie and owned by an Aussie. This year the horse has a different trainer, so doesn't count as a Kiwi - well, that's what the aussies say, but we know better.

Its always a contentious issue what horses are classified as NZers as a lot of the aforementioned 'big races' winners are bred here, so we get to claim a lot of them. Last year NZbred horses won the big 3 races. It was pretty good for our breeding industry.

Generally speaking, 'Kiwi' horses are owned, trained and prepared for the big races in NZ, a-la the quartet mentioned above.

hurmmmm so its a completely contentious issue where a horse is "from".... based on where it was born, which countries horse concieved/sire it, what natiionality its trainer is, which country its trained in and where its owner(s) are from?

What a freakin pain in the ass psssst

Well, you know what Aussies are like. They'll claim fking everything, just look at Phar Lap.

For simple folk, we'll just say the horses trained in NZ are the kiwis.

Yeah I remember when I was living in Melb I was completely aghast to hear on the radio a DJ introducing a "good old school Aussie band" before playing Shark Attack by Split Enz

CAUFILED CUP TOMORROW. Go the Kiwis!!!

No-Horse-Barrier Draw-Trainer-Jockey-Weight

1-WEEKEND HUSSLER 11 Ross McDonald Brad Rawiller 57

2 MALDIVIAN (NZ)18 Mark Kavanagh Michael Rodd 56.5

3 MASTER O'REILLY (NZ)13 Danny O'Brien Vlad Duric 56

4 FIUMICINO (NZ) 4 John Hawkes 56

5 KIBBUTZ(NZ) 5 SCRATCHED

6 NOM DU JEU 20 (NZ) Murray Baker Jeff Lloyd 55.5

7 MAD RUSH (USA) 17 Luca Cumani Damien Oliver 55

8 ALL THE GOOD(IRE) 8 Saeed Bin Suroor K.McEvoy 54.5

9 DOURO VALLEY 3Danny O'Brien James Winks 54.5

10 ICE CHARIOT 2 Ron Maund Glyn Schofield 54.5

11 VIEWED 14 Bart Cummings Blake Shinn 54.5

12 LITTORIO 10 Nigel Blackiston Steven King 54

13 RED RULER (NZ) 1 John Sargent Corey Brown 54

14 BOUNDLESS (NZ) 6 Stephen Mckee Dwayne Dunn 53.5

15 DOLPHIN JO 12 T & K O'Sullivan C. Lindop 53

16 RIVA SAN 9 Peter G Moody Luke Nolen 53

17 ZAGREB 7 David Hayes Glen Boss 52

18 GUILLOTINE (NZ) 21 David Hayes Craig Williams 51.5

19 BARBARICUS 22 Danny O'Brien 52

20 NEWPORT 16 [2nd Emergency] Paul Perry Peter Wells(a)53

21 RED LORD 19 [3rd Emergency] Anthony Cummings 53

22 MOATIZE 15 [4th Emergency] Bart Cummings Chris Symons 51.5

I firmly believe that this year will see a NZ trained winner And my $$$ is on RED RULER. The other 2 kiwi-trained horses, Boundless & Nom Du Jeu have royal chances as ell, so i'm covering my asss and having a smaller flutter on then. Here's my Trifecta:

1. RED RULER
2. BOUNDLESS
3. MASTER O'RIELLY (NZ-Bred, last years winner)

Dangers

LITTORIO
GUILLOTINE
NOM DU JEU

I'm also taking a sneaky $10 Multi Red ruler in the Caufield Cup into Princess Coup in the Cox plate. $900 return.

shall i copy your bets mr pstu? are you good at this horse racing jazz?

Lets just say i'm to Horse Racing what Yaksha is to Poker.

Except i'm better at poker than what he is at horse racing.

Yeah mate, get on. Don't go stupid though!

no way just a sneaky 100$ or so!

why isnt red ruler on the tab website?? hmm

nm wasl ooking at cox plate not caulfield

nailed down a box trifecta on that recommend pstu.

the tri was $45,000. I didnt get it Mind you, neither did 99.99% of the betting public.

had some place money on Nom Du Jeu, that was a great run. Boundless got knocked over and lost all chance while red ruler had a good run and hit the line well, finishing 6th. I do think it would have gone better if it had been pulled to the outside and had a clear run. Still some chance in the Melbourne Cup... will post more on that later.

In the meantime, get on Princess Coup for the Cox Plate. She has the measure of all the horses in that race yesterday

Ooooh yeah, best race of the year coming up on Saturday... the $3mil AUD Cox Plate, where the BEST horse generally always wins. As the races is run under weight-for-age rather than handicap conditions (essentially meaning ever horse is not weight handicapped based on performance). This year, it's more than likely to be a kiwi taking out the great race... Princess Coup, trained in Matamata by Mark Walker.

She should win, and win well.

The only things against her are her back-running style which is unsuitable for a tight turning track like Moonee Valley in Melbourne (short home straight - unsuitable for back runners as they have to come wide around the corner, covering extra distance) and the crack 3-year-old Aussie filly, Samantha Miss, whom the aussies think have a real chance of winning... i'm not so sure, but she does have about a 9kg weight advantage over P.C, which is a worry. history shows that 3y.o fillies are up against it: only one has won in the 80-odd year history of the race.

So get on the princess, and go the kiwis!

My selections:

Princess Coup
Alamosa
Zipping
Samantha Miss

box these 4 in a trifecta and you should go pretty close