Who Is Going To Win The Melbourne Cup?

One of the best ways to pick a winner, any winner – and it’s a tried and tested method is by one of the following means:-

• Toss a Coin
• By Silk Colours
• By Favourite Jockey

And most importantly …

By Horse name.

Ha ha ha ha ha ha ……………….

Someone once asked me how I do my form and I replied with great trepidation. I now had to give away my secret formula of reading the form and I cant pass this information on in detail now otherwise I will have to shoot you.

The Melbourne Cup as you will all know has always been a favourite betting race for all Australians – however this year with there being so many overseas horses with information unknown there will be many snakes and ladders – so punters do take care.

I guess the most important issue I feel is to know is that the horse can actually run the distance. If your horse runs out of gas at the 2500m mark – its all over and he’ll be home with the cab-catchers!! 

Another important factor to me is the jockey – no one knows the nuances of Flemington like the local grown lads. Ok, so you have picked your horse, he has some unknown overseas gentleman riding the horse for the first time at Flemington and more than likely will be sitting 5-wide for the whole trip! Goodbye money!

Barriers. Always, always a contentious issue. You know, if you were running your horse in a maiden at Doomben and you drew Barrier 24 – you would scratch him without a moment’s notice. But, this is the Melbourne Cup, so, if you happen to have drawn 24 in the Melbourne Cup – good luck!! Mind you, Brew did it…

Barriers are a big thing… ask yourself the question… will the jock go forward and use up the much needed gas needed for the sprint home?? Or will he or she go back and slot in? Horses drawn the inside barriers will be taking it easy having a snooze while those from the outside will be whisked like scrambling eggs trying to find a position.

Ok, now looking at the horses themselves…. Will they be wearing any different gear to get them through the 3200m? An example of this would be Americain who will now be sporting Concussion Plates instead of normal racing plates. He might have a jarring up problem… not that they are going to tell us!!

Over to the Overseas Contenders – in fact they all are really with the exception of Older Than Time, Niwot and The Verminator. 

With the overseas contenders one issue to contemplate is, have they been out in the Victorian sunshine competing in races? Statistics show that overseas horses that have done the quarantine thing and are competing in races during the carnival do better than those who haven’t raced in Australia – they’ve settled in, their eating, their racing and can be competitive.

The yard stick to measure the overseas horses seem to be Jukebox Jury, Americain, Dunaden and Drunken Sailor who have spent the last couple of months competing against each other overseas.

Jukebox Jury has beaten all of these horses during this time. However, in saying that, the question still remains, has Jukebox Jury settled in and acclimatised?? How do we know as he hasn’t raced since arriving in Australia?

One thing that sticks out like the proverbial is that Niwot can run and win at the distance. He has a strong local jock to steer, has a half way decent barrier and is being trained by Team Hawkes – who takes no prisoners ( remember Malucky Day who ran 2^nd last year in the Cup after winning the Lexus – and coincidentally just like Niwot).

Ok, the 64,000 question …. Who is going TOWIN??

Whatever you want TOWIN, I hope it does go on TOWIN for you.

Mmmmm…. now, where is that coin??