The Cup That Sorts Out The Silk From The Scrubbers
The Age
Thursday October 14, 1993
TO racing's new generation, the W.S.Cox Plate might have the glitz; for Mick Mallyon, the rankings are unchanged since he came into ``the game" more than 30years ago. He acknowledges the Plate's growth in popularity, but for him, the Melbourne Cup and Caulfield Cup, in that order, are still the quinella.
Since Mallyon's Caulfield Cup wins aboard Bunratty Castle (1968), Gay Icarus (1971) and Leilani (1974), the race has increasingly come under siege, a victim of shifting perceptions about its place in an era when weight-for-age racing has become more and more the sport's darling.
Some people debunk the Caulfield Cup, a handicap, as a million-dollar anachronism sandwiched between a flurry of Group1 wfa races; others more mildly might suggest that, along with the swing in relative prizemoney (the Cox Plate, once worth considerably less than the cup, is now worth $500,000 more), it has been devalued in status and glamor.
The vagaries of our spring weather have invited other criticisms of the Caulfield Cup, with statistics produced to show that in recent times, because of rain-affected ground, too many cups have been run on the wrong side of two minutes 30seconds. The answer, they say, is to run the race in a drier part of the spring.
That kite never really lifted off. How could it? The quality of the cup winners tends to refute any theory that because a track is wet, the result is misleading and the winner undeserving.
The debate about the handicap conditions of the Caulfield and Melbourne cups, and about whether the Melbourne Cup is too long at 3200metres, has been more energetic, prompting some observers to wonder whether the Cox Plate, rather than the Melbourne Cup, has become the nation's most glittering racing jewel. Along with the question of how to rank the three races, there have been suggestions that the formats of both cups should be changed.
The Victoria Racing Club and the Victoria Amateur Turf Club, who also have had to consider the emerging significance of the Japan Cup on the spring carnival, have resisted such calls _ among them, that the VRC shorten the Melbourne Cup, and that the VATC make the Caulfield Cup a wfa race. Mallyon is thankful that the clubs have stood firm. So are many other people.
``I know you probably have a dozen or so of the best horses in the land (in the Cox Plate), but I don't know ... everyone has their own thoughts, but I think they are wonderful races as they are now, with handicaps," Mallyon, who now trains horses, said of the cups.
``Don't get me wrong," he said this week. ``I'm not detracting from the fact that your W.S.Cox Plates are good _ they certainly are _ but I think these are the test of a real horse, these two.
Mallyon's wins, which placed him among the elite participants in the Caulfield Cup's 114-year history, exemplified all that is great about the race, and about its winners. All were memorable _ Gay Icarus and Leilani because of the triumph of absolute class, and Bunratty Castle because of the manner of his victory, with Mallyon rating him so sweetly in front.
``It's probably one of the hardest (races to ride) ... it's hard for jockey and beast," said Mallyon. Hard enough that the cream still rises, as the Caulfield Cup's honor roll continues to be blessed with names that do it justice, ensuring that reminiscences are not stuck in a time warp, with names such as Manfred, Rising Fast, Redcraze, Tulloch, Galilee and Tobin Bronze to sustain the race forever.
Sometimes, as with Let's Elope and Gurner's Lane, it takes subsequent events to press home a Caulfield Cup winner's true quality. When Let's Elope won with just 48.5kilograms two years ago, the sceptics wanted something more before they would acknowledge her greatness. Little more than two weeks later, in the Melbourne Cup and, the following autumn, in the Australian Cup, she left them with little about which to argue.
But if wfa and classic-calibre winners are a marvellous advertisement for the cup (the past three winners have won at wfa in Group1 company), the high-class handicap horse still plays a role, as Lord Reims showed in 1987 when he fitted in a Caulfield Cup win on his way to a hat-trick of Adelaide Cups. It most definitely is not a race for scrubbers.
The cup also continues to work in nicely with three of the races at Caulfield the week before _ the Herbert Power Handicap (now the Quiz- Eze), the Caulfield Stakes and the Toorak Handicap _ and the Coongy Handicap three days before. One of the cup's strengths is this intrigue: that there is no fixed formula for finding the winner; that you never know the path along which he or she will come.
Another of its captivating qualities is the uncertainty of what will happen in that often frantic run to the first turn, a stretch of turf that has cost many jockeys a suspension after a Caulfield Cup, Mallyon among them. He said it could be hair-raising.
``The race can take so many changes out of the boxes to that winning post ... That is one of the most treacherous rides you can ever have.
I'll tell you what; when you are over on that inside there, you only have to miss a beat ... It's a bit of a go, I'll tell you," said Mallyon, whose ride from a wide barrier on the imported Bunratty Castle remains a vivid memory for many people, as much for its beauty as for the fact that it seemed to be what the Caulfield Cup was all about _ fast stayers, and sustaining speed.
No, there is nothing wrong with leaving the Caulfield Cup as it has always been _ at a mile-and-a-half, or its metric equivalent, and under handicap conditions. A good horse _ a very good horse _ will win tomorrow, be it wet or dry. That is the day's only certainty.
© 1993 The Age