Melbourne Cup needs ballot exemptions in the wake of international invasion
I’m not. Well, I am about a royal commission but not about launching an inquiry into what we want this race to be; who we want to run it; how it should be handicapped – if indeed it remains a handicap – and what wider effect does it have on the industry at large.
I don’t mind if it’s done by the VRC and RV provided it’s open and transparent with submissions taken from all industry participants.
There is clearly a mood and appetite for this following the widespread unease about the likely number of overseas-trained Cup runners this year and the strong views expressed publicly by Richard Freedman, Mick Kent, Terry Henderson, Luke Murrell and Max Presnell… and others.
More ballot exemptions for Australian stayers is a recurring theme.
This is one of three main areas which does my head in about the Melbourne Cup. The others are the dubious handicap nature of the race and, most of all, this repeated nonsense that the number of internationals runners is justified on the basis that we we are attracting the best.
What rubbish!
Matt Welsh, writing on Racing.com, asserted this week: “The best sporting events in the world assemble the most talented field. Whether it be the football World Cup, US Masters golf or the Olympics – the most prestigious events invite the best.”
Paul Bloodworth, similarly, wrote: “The Melbourne Cup sits alongside the Australian Open and Formula One Grand Prix on Melbourne’s major international events calendar and provides an opportunity for Australia’s best horses and trainers to match it with the world’s best…”
So, gentlemen you are obviously going to spring a massive surprise this morning and announce that among the 27 internationals landing this morning will be – Enable, Roaring Lion, Poet’s Word, Crystal Ocean, Cracksman, Alpha Centauri, Masar, Laurens, Recoletos, Saxon Warrior and Sea Of Class.
These are the best horses in the UK and Europe at the moment. None of them will be in Melbourne.
We won’t even have Stradivarius and Vazirabad who would have added genuine interest as the two best stayers around.
So, please spare me the best argument.
All we have is potential embarrassment. Jungle Cat’s already claimed the Rupert Clarke. How are we looking if Blair House wins tomorrow’s Underwood Stakes, US Navy Flag claims The Everest and Benbatl, a B-grader or maybe an A minus, beats Winx in the Cox Plate?
In fairness, Bloodworth made a number of worthwhile points in his defence of the international participation but I suspect it raised more questions than he provided answers.
“International participation brings with it increased investment in Victoria’s visitor economy,” he wrote. I’m sure it does but we need to ‘see the numbers’ and know whether there’s a direct correlation between the number of overseas-trained horses and overseas visitors.
Bloodwort also wrote: “The Melbourne Cup was broadcast into 163 countries last year and is the pinnacle of an international wagering market that turns over more than $500 million annually on Victorian racing, generating significant income for reinvestment back into our industry.”
So it’s the pinnacle. Is it the key? Show me the money and how many international horses are needed to justify overseas telecasting and betting?
For a time everybody, myself included, fell for this notion that the Melbourne Cup needed a massive shot of internationalisation. Did it really? Immediately following Vintage Crop paving the way for the foreign invasion in 1993 the winners were the locally trained Jeune, Doriemus, Saintly and Might And Power. Wasn’t much wrong with the race.
I doubt it was ever the VRC’s intention to have overseas-trained runners comprise half the Cup field. In Vintage Crop’s year there were two, followed by a total of eleven in the next four years.
Last year that number was eleven with a further seven imported runners. In 2016, there were nine overseas trained runners and a further eleven imports.
They’re not the best and the man in the street doesn’t know them. Nor do we always see them before the Cup. Nor does the Racing.com website really do enough in providing videos of all of their recent runs.
Which brings us back to ballot exempt races. Pick six – in September and October and exempt the first two placegetters. If the internationals choose to contest them then so be it and, at least, we see them.
Australians, at large, have stopped trying to develop staying horses was trainer Mick Kent’s recent argument and Bloodworth detailed a long list of Derby-competing three-year-olds who’ve been sold to Hong Kong in the past two years.
Prize-money is a factor in both cases and demands an examination of whether the talent drain to Hong Kong is a good or a bad thing.
As Kent observed, New Zealand-breds including winner Prince Of Penzance have still performed well in recent years and it’s not that long ago that we had three ‘local’ wins on end with Efficient, Viewed and Shocking.
Kent wrote: “They’ve taken away the dream. It used to be every Australian trainer’s dream to win the Melbourne Cup. Not now. They, and most of their clients, dream of winning a Golden Slipper or The Everest. I fear the stories of Michelle Payne or school teacher Wendy Green winning with Rogan Josh or Kiwi trainers like Snowy Lupton winning the Cup will be gone. Good heavens, it’s 20 years since a bona fide Kiwi trainer Brian Jenkins won the race.”
All of which raises many questions, including does the Melbourne Cup have to be a great race in terms of the quality of competitor or just a great handicap race which anyone can, in theory, win.
Should it be a handicap or a quality handicap or even a set weights race? It’s not a true handicap now as weight-for-age winners can’t be penalised which is presumably some bizarre legacy of a time when ‘shifty’ trainers had to be encouraged to try with their better horses.
Has the plethora of international runners been part of the decline in New Zealand racing?
Do we need so many visitors given that we’ve always had spirited and well publicised competition among horses and trainers from the various states of Australia which is not the case in many other notable jurisdictions, including Hong Kong which has a limited pool of horses and therefore the fillip of visiting competition is more readily justified?
The Cup has always been the centre of debate and changes have been made over the years so it’s not sacrosanct.
Once upon a time, the penalties for various wins were set and not at the discretion of the handicapper.
And, good heavens, as far back as 1931 The Herald ran a story under the following headline: “Plans to improve stamina and breeding of horses.”
The story read: “In recent years students of breeding have increasingly declared that we are sacrificing staying power to speed. Few men can now afford to buy yearlings and give them time to mature, and instead we have the majority asking for those that will come early and go fast.”
So, there you go. Nothing’s changed in almost ninety years other than the springtime invasion.