Weight for age ranks changing for better

For years Australia turned out some freakishly gifted horses and we somewhat took them for granted.

We had the golden era of racing in the 90s, turning out champions like Super Impose, Better Loosen Up, Vo Rogue, Saintly, Octagonal, Let’s Elope, Might And Power, the list goes on.

Before those horses we had Kingston Town, Dulcify and Manikato.

Though the champions became household names, it was horses they beat that gave them the stature we hold them in today.

Remember how Saintly won the ’96 Cox Plate? It wasn’t the way he won the race it, was who ‘The horse from Heaven’ beat.

They were all great horses in their own right such as Filante, All Our Mob, Octagonal, Juggler, Anthems, Crying Game and Adventurous.

After Saintly won that race there was no doubting he would be remembered as a champion but you couldn’t say the same for weight for age horses in recent years.

Go back 18 months to the 2011 Cox Plate where Pinker Pinker won and beat Jimmy Choux, Rekindled Interest, Wall Street, Secret Admirer, Efiicient, Kings Rose, Helmet, Sincero, Glass Harmonium, Playing God, Shamrocker, Avienus and Lion Tamer.

The 2011 Cox Plate may well go down as one of the worst Cox Plates in the last 50 years, with only Glass Harmonium, Playing God and Sincero winning races since that day.

In the last couple of seasons, Australia has had no genuine weight for age stars, with the exception of So You Think, Black Caviar and Whobegotyou.

While our sprinters have still drawn good WFA races it’s the middle-distance WFA ranks that have been hit hard over the past couple of seasons.

A further example of this is to look at the horses who have topped the middle-distance WFA ranks over the past two years.

They are Shoot Out, a multiple Group 1 winner, Manighar, a European import who had raced in two Caulfield Cups before he won a Group 1, and More Joyous, who is the second best older horse in Australia to Black Caviar, though has failed in almost every Grand Slam she’s raced in.

All of the mentioned horse are great on their day but they all lack the killer punch that is required to become a champion.

Even though the lack of quality WFA horses has been prominent, I think it’ll change through the next batch of three year olds coming through, including Pierro, All Too Hard, It’s A Dundeel, Proisir, Rebel Dane, Dear Demi, Norzita, Fiveandahalfstar and Super Cool.

I think this will be the year where champions will emerge and 2013 will go down as one of the best for racing.