3 minute read
Plenty to talk about from a Guineas day with more questions than answers.
Might And Power
Deny Knowledge certainly got the formula for beating Mr Brightside right, adopting Pride Of Jenni tactics and opening up a big lead.
Maybe it would've been better to be closer to her but sectionally, Williams has ridden Mr Brightside fine and pretty close to efficiently, more so (I think) than in the Feehan last start.
Deny Knowledge got her perfect storm- a fast track, an easy lead, and that will give you a huge advantage compared to any bias that may or may not have been there.
I've said it multiple times about Pride Of Jenni and again it has rung true here- Deny Knowledge has, strictly speaking, gone out too quickly, but not by much, and the potential downfalls that come with going too fast are heavily outweighed by the advantages that you get.
Mr Brightside had his chance to catch her and couldn't. He's run to an R&S rating of 116 with the winner running to 118- a clear new peak, but not one unreasonable to forecast.
She'd run slight new peaks of 110 and 111 at her past two starts and did it tough in the Underwood fresh. There was every chance she could run to a new peak again on Saturday and did so.
Mr Brightside's form at 2000m continues to falter. Save for last year's Cox Plate, where the pace wasn't overly taxing, he's run around an average of nine pounds off his best, and it's notable that the last three 2000m runs have all had tearaway leaders.
It's doubtful he can win what should be a high-pressure Cox Plate, while the winner goes to the Caulfield Cup this week and will be highly fancied at the weights.
With 50.5kg, rated 118, she'll likely be the highest rated horse in the final field. It will be a very different scenario running 2400m with plenty of company, but she has to be a genuine hope.
Guineas
The trickiest race to get a read on and the one that really fuelled the fire for the 'track's cast' crew. The time is average. It's okay compared to Grinzinger Belle but awful compared to Antino (who has gone like a rocket), and all-in-all, just looks like a recent (Anamoe excluded) typical Caulfield Guineas, if you take out Broadsiding.
It's hard to make a case he was an unlucky loser. He ran the fastest last 400/200m of the race, but it's hardly like he's finishing all over them. Even if you want to say there was a bias, which there probably was, but just because there's almost always a bias to horses leading on a firm deck at Caulfield, I certainly can't say he would've definitely won.
Evaporate is the clear knock on that. They were in run together and while he got going a touch earlier, that Broadsiding couldn't even get over that horse late says plenty.
Why Broadsiding didn't run to his best (which is not up for debate- he's clearly regressed significantly), could be due to any number of factors, the most likely one being that he's a young horse who had a below par day.
The winner has run to 116 on the Timeform scale which is what we're almost coming to expect in recent years. The lowest rated Guineas winner was Golden Mile at 114 in 2022 while Griff also went to 116 last year. It's a far cry from Anamoe (123) and The Autumn Sun (126), who hold up the recent average.
The real question is, what do we do with the form? I've seen some commentary that Broadsiding's run reminded them of So You Think.
So You Think was rated 114 by Timeform going into the Guineas (Broadsiding 121) and then ran 109 in the Guineas (Broadsiding 112), but to suggest Broadsiding can spike as highly as one of the all-time greatest Australian horses is very doubtful.
So You Think improved 16 pounds to run 125 in the Cox Plate and that is likely the minimum requirement needed to win this year. Broadsiding can and should improve, but this isn't a strong Guineas and I think he would've had to really put them away, or have been last in run and finishing ridiculously fast to suggest he's going to be a genuine Cox Plate chance.
Toorak
This got the people up and about after a fairly mixed day of results, and although it seemed the punters wanted Another Wil to win, Antino's dominant display certainly left the crowd in awe.
Much has been made of Blake Shinn's ride, but I'll offer my own take as well. It seemed as if he anticipated the leader's slowdown and whipped around the field even just before they slowed.
The 800-600m he's run approximately three lengths faster than any other horse, and about 4.5 lengths faster than the leading pair, and his 600-400m split was again approximately three lengths faster than the next.
To be able to sustain the fastest race sectionals from the 1200m to about the 50m mark is an outstanding performance and has rated very highly.
He's run to 124 on the R&S scale, up four pounds from a previous best of 120 which came last start in the Feehan. Prior to that his peak was 118.
Either the Champions Mile or Champions Stakes over 2000m are genuine options, and Hong Kong is certainly a realistic possibility now.
Conveniently, we saw the likely Hong Kong Champions Mile favourite first-up on Sunday in Galaxy Patch. He ran to 122 on the R&S scale to beat the 124 rated Voyage Bubble. Antino would go over there right in the mix if he can continue to race at this sort of level.