Randwick Guineas preview

On Monday, Justin Cinque made the case that this season’s batch of three-year-olds was the best in decades.

Tomorrow, we’re seeing another group one on offer for this prestigious crop with the Royal Randwick Guineas, albeit taking place at Warwick Farm.

While I agree with Justin that we appear to be seeing three-year-olds of a higher than usual quality, I’m very much in the camp that our weight-for-age ranks, especially at anything over a sprinting trip, are extremely thin.

The older horses got soundly whipped by a minimum of four lengths in the Australian Cup, and the best credentialed WFA horse among them, Glass Harmonium was beaten by five.

Now, the Mike Moroney-trained galloper has his share of talent, and is a bulldog in the straight when he’s been rated well, but I’d imagine a horse like Grand Armee or Desert War would beat him by ten lengths!

The greatest example of the lack of depth in our WFA ranks is Rekindled Interest.

This is a horse that almost started favourite in a Cox Plate, and continues to be rated in the markets most of the time he turns out.

He’s run some handy races in his career, but can you imagine him starting at anything under $31 if he was competing a decade ago?

Manighar certainly created headlines this time last year, taking out the Australian Cup, Ranvet Stakes and BMW. But does anyone really think he would be competitive against the likes of Sunline, Northerly, Lohnro and Makybe Diva?

Connections of Shogun Lodge and Defier must look at the current fields with dismay. How many group one races would each have won in the current day?

So, getting back to the present, are there any potential superstars running around in the Randwick Guineas?

Rebel Dane, It’s a Dundeel and Proisir seem the likely candidates for such a status and are rightfully the first three in betting for tomorrow’s race.

The markets have not much between Rebel Dane and Proisir, but for mine the former should be clearly on top.

His turn of foot is superior to any other horse in the race, and he looks like he’ll relish the mile, which he’s stepping up to for the first time. I fancy that it may become his pet distance.

There looks to be a solid tempo on my speed map, and Jason Collett on Rebel Dane will have the pick of where he wants to sit from barrier one. Unless, Proisir blows them away from up front or goes out hard to get them off the bit, I can’t see him being beaten.

Proisir was disappointing first up for mine, and I wonder if the Gai Waterhouse colt is already at a mini-crossroads. It’s been six months since his last win, which was the breathtaking Spring Stakes at Newcastle, and I’m not sure what the right race for him will be.

We saw that It’s a Dundeel had him covered over 2000m in the Spring Champion, and if I fancy Rebel Dane has him covered at 1600m here, it’s right to ask where his next win will come from. And that’s without taking into account a couple of handy potential competitors in Pierro and All Too Hard!

It’s a Dundeel had the perfect return in the Hobartville, making good ground late to suggest that he’s on target for his future goals. I’ve got some time for this horse, he’s got the touch of class we’re always looking for, so we can watch for him to be strong again late.

I’m not sure there’s much between Tougher Than Ever and Sacred Falls, and fancy they’ll both fall a bit short at the highest level here, while we’ll get to see how the Melbourne three-year-old’s form ties in with the performance of Australian Guineas winner Ferlax.

I’ve seen plenty of Snowden horses perform well in the Spring but then not come up for an Autumn campaign, so the jury is still well and truly out on Tatra, Proverb and Solemn, especially after they all ran into a heavy track first up.

Selections: 1. Rebel Dane; 2. It’s a Dundeel; 3. Proisir; 4. Ashokan