3 minute read
Lightning Stakes Day was an eventful one and the main event certainly played it's part in the theatrics.
The battle for favouritism between the established Chautauqua and the boom horse Exosphere was the perfect preamble to a race that invariably delivers a championship performance - not just domestically, but internationally.
In that sense it delivered again. Appropriately for a race titled The Lightning, Chautauqua arrived in a big silver flash, narrowly prevailing over Terravista, Japonisme and a lonely Exosphere.
The overall time was soft - certainly not of world championship standard - sitting just approx 2.5 lengths faster than the moderately run mares handicap earlier on the card, but that all comes down to the first 200-300m where positioning took priority over pace.
Tactics were always going to be to the fore in the select (small) field and, as connections have since acknowledged, the boys in blue got it wrong, zigging where they should have zagged with Exosphere.
The exosphere is the outer layer of the atmosphere. It sits all alone, far enough away from earth that the gravitational pull is only very gentle - the horse is appropriately named!
Following a 100-1 chance away from the main chances was never going to be ideal. Exosphere ran the fastest 200m split in the race from the 600m to the 400m, which quickly put Va Pensiero away, but left him wandering about on his own. A racehorse with no one to race, and no gravitational tug from those capable of taking him to where he needed to go.
Meanwhile over where the action was, Terravista claimed Japonisme and looked to have the race shot to bits before jockey Damien Oliver lost his whip and Chauatauqua, racing widest of all, was able to slow slower than his old rival and nab him right on the line.
As mentioned, the overall time was nothing to write home about, the timefigure was in line with what could be expected from a mere open handicap on the day, but sectional times point to the performance of the winner being high-class, and the performance has been assessed at Chautauqua's peak, 127.
That rating also falls in line with historical standards, race standardisation techniques pointing to a rating in the range of 121-129 with a weighted mean of 125.
With Terravista and Japonisme rated 125 and 124 respectively the 2016 Lightning is the first to have three horses return a rating above 120 since the greatest Lightning of them all, Black Caviar's 2016 triumph, where she returned her career peak 136 by taking down Hay List, Buffering and Foxwedge who all comfortably cleared the 120 mark.
In fact, Hay List's 132 in defeat remains the second highest rating in the modern history of the Lightning - better than the winning performances of not only Chautauqua but world class former winners such as Lankan Rupee, Fastnet Rock and Testa Rossa.
The undercard couldn't match the feature for quality but it wasn't lacking for drama.
The C.S Hayes Stakes, the key lead-up to the Australian Guineas, went the way of Tivaci but he had to win his race in the stewards room after Palentino took the honours on the track.
Palentino comes out of the race with a rating of 112p and Tivaci 105 but the race was a messy one and hardly a conclusive piece of form heading towards the Guineas.
Palentino started hard in the market and was first past the post. He enhanced his Guineas claims but he will still head to the race with a body of work far inferior to current market leader Xtravagant who is rated 125+.
The Vanity produced questions of it's own. Perfect Reflection was no better than fair running third, but the winner, Don't Doubt Mama, outperformed the colts on the day.
Perfect Reflection was well below her peak rating of 113 in the Vanity and will have to improve sharply on the performance to be a factor in the Guineas. There's little doubt that she will be better suited up to a mile but it would be hard to come away from Saturday bullish about her chances in two weeks time.
The listed Talindert Stakes has a history of throwing up a nice winner and it looks to have done that again through Weatherly.
Weatherly was in the right part of the track, but rather than that pouring cold water on his solid figures (he ran to a rating of 111p) it's appears more a case of being upbeat about the performances of those away from the A-ground.
Those include newcomers Battle Order and Clockwork Orange. Debut ratings of 93p and 85p are hardly out-of-the-box but they should be treated as positive building blocks and both look winners for the future.