3 minute read

Tony McEvoy takes a strong hand with him to Caulfield's autumn highlight, Blue Diamond Day.

McEvoy's has chances across the board and The Melbourne Mail - shooting for a perfect 5 from 5 in 2015 - is hopping aboard the bandwagon.

Perhaps the most exciting of McEvoy's runners is the three-year-old Alpine Eagle.

Related:

The Melbourne Mail - February 21

Alpine Eagle runs in race four, the Group 2 Autumn Classic over 1800m, where he officially plays the part of 'new kid on the block'.

Many of his rivals today have been on the fringes since early in the season, with none of them stamping themselves as top-liners and several confirming their limitations, but there are no limitations on Alpine Eagle who looked the part when he blew apart a decent handicap field in Adelaide last time out, returning what were clearly the best figures against the clock on the day, albeit a fairly modest day.

One of the keys to time analysis - so often overlooked - is taking into account the ability of the horse running the time and the ability of the horses that set the standards.

If you picked up the fields from Blue Diamond Day and took them to Hanging Rock they would all run well inside standard times, and not because the track was playing fast, but because the horses are far superior to those that typically grace the fine turf of Hanging Rock.

To slow these horses down based on the assumption that the track was 'playing fast' is flawed, as ultimately it downplays good horses and overvalues lesser horses.

Times left pure are good for little, times adjusted for the going are interesting, times adjusted for the going and the ability of the horses that produced them are valuable.

Alpine Eagle's time, adjusted for those factors, was smart, and pointed to him being at the level required to not only match it with but set the standard for his rivals today. Priced up on that predictive figure he's not an unfair bet at $2.40 with his true odds closer to even money in our opinion.

Later on the card comes one of the big betting races of the season, the Oakleigh Plate.

It's an old fashioned Oakleigh Plate this year with plenty of chances evenly matched.

It's the sort of race where we can back multiple runners but one that we think should be kept on side is the talented Iconic, another member of Tony McEvoy's team.

Last year's Oakleigh Plate aside, Iconic has typically run good races at Caulfield, just as he has second up.

He'll be back and in plenty of traffic from that inside draw but if the splits arrive at the right time he has the closing speed to take them. Look for the red and white colours to be ducking and weaving into the finish at good each way odds.

THE MELBOURNE MAIL

Best Of The Day: Race 4 #5 Alpine Eagle @ $2.40

Each Way Play: Race 7 #13 Iconic @ $12.00