Horse racing in review: 2015

The Australian racing season runs from August to July and most 12-month analysis takes place after that period, but it’s also fun to look back at the calendar year.

We see which horses have been able to back up from season to season, and what kind of impact the best autumn three-year-olds have in their four-year-old spring.

Let’s have a look at the highlights and lowlights, focussing on the Group 1 races.

Best race
A few contenders for this title – Real Impact refusing to yield to Criterion in the George Ryder, Hartnell and To The World taking off early to fight out the BMW, Mongolian Khan beating Hauraki and Volkstok’n’barrell in a three-horse war down the straight in the AJC Derby, Dissident defying a host of quality Group 1 gallopers in the All Aged Stakes, and Preferment taking out the Turnbull with winning chances everywhere at the 200m.

But the race of the year was the VRC Classic on the last day of the Flemington carnival, with Delectation out-sprinting Chautauqua, Terravista and Buffering after the four of them made a line with 100m to go.

Buffering had beaten off the also-rans on the speed in his indomitable way, the undisputed champ Chautauqua was making his move out wide, Terravista the usual challenger eating up ground on the fence, and all the while runs were opening up for underdog Delectation, who surged to the line and wouldn’t be denied.

It was also further proof of how a Chris Waller runner can never be denied at the highest level, regardless of their competition.

Best win
Many would go for Winx in the Cox Plate, but the outrageous track bias of the day took away much of the merit for me. The same horse in the Epsom is also worthy of mention, but the field was Group 3 quality outside of her.

Exosphere in the Golden Rose was dominant, Brazen Beau was brilliant in the Newmarket, and Criterion was effortless in taking out the Queen Elizabeth in comfortable style.

In the end though, this is probably a competition between Chautauqua in the TJ Smith and Chautauqua in the Manikato Stakes.

In the former, he must have been giving the leader ten lengths as they straightened, and still had a couple to make up at the 100m before getting there in the last bound of guts and courage to match his undoubted talent.

In the latter, he was spotting Buffering six to eight lengths rounding the home turn at Moonee Valley, and surged passed them all to somehow end up easing down to win by two in a win that can only be described as breath-taking.

Best ride
It seemed that a higher than usual amount of Group 1s were won this year by a jockey rating a horse perfectly in front, and several that got there in the final bound from back in the field after timing their run to a minute, but there is really only one contender for ride of the year: Michelle Payne on Prince of Penzance in the Melbourne Cup.

A jockey can ride the perfect race on a 100-1 shot a thousand times with no-one noticing because the horse isn’t good enough to be anywhere near the finish, but fancy doing exactly that in a Melbourne Cup and finding your horse in front at the post.

Whether it was hustling Prince of Penzance up after he was tardy away to take a position, getting the horse to settle when he was throwing his head around in the early stages, or moving her mount out at the 700m to ensure he could move into the race with every chance, it was a faultless performance from Payne.

She got the horse onto the back of Trip To Paris – who she probably figured would be too good, but would at least take her into the race, which he did – and then she popped out from behind him at the 350m when she realised her horse was going better than the highly fancied one.

It was a masterclass of a Melbourne Cup ride from Michelle Payne, and worthy of all the subsequent acclaim that came her way.

Most disappointing horse
Contributer cut a swathe when unbeaten through the Sydney autumn, winning three weight-for-age races, including two Group 1s, the Chipping Norton and Ranvet Stakes. Big things were expected in the Melbourne spring, but along with stablemate Hartnell, the BMW winner, neither fired a shot.

Rich Enuff was the three-year-old to follow out of the Melbourne 2014 spring, but he was outright hopeless in his four outings as a four-year-old, starting off averagely, and getting worse from there.

But possibly the most disappointing of all was two horses that we didn’t even get to see suit up, the winners of the two biggest two-year-old races, Golden Slipper winner Vancouver, and Blue Diamond (and Sires Produce) winner Pride of Dubai.

Hopefully we’ll see both horses back in the New Year to tackle races like the Randwick Guineas and Doncaster.

Track bias
The rails bias on Cox Plate day and VRC Derby day ruined the greatest time of year for racing fans.

All seven Group races on Cox Plate day were won by horses that spent almost all of their race hard up against the rail – four of them leading all the way, Jameka and The United States only having to go around one horse, and of course Winx charging through the gap created by The Cleaner.

How disappointing it was a week later to see more of the same at Flemington, highlighted in the Mackinnon by Gailo Chop getting tackled early in the straight before surging forward like he’d turned into a motorbike, with Magic Artist sprouting wings behind him, both horses hard up against the fence.

Time after time in Cup week we saw runners loom up four to six horses off the fence, only to hit the quicksand in the middle of the track, and then on the final day it turned around and the outside rail was the place to be.

It was unbecoming on Australian racing’s biggest stage.

That’s my snapshot of the Australian racing year, and I’m sure Roarers had many highlights and lowlights of their own. Let me know yours in the comments below.