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Am I the only one disappointed with the Derby line-up?

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31st October, 2018
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The list of Cox Plate winners reads like a ‘who’s who‘ of Australian racing.

The same can certainly not be said for the Victoria Derby. Its winners’ roll call, particularly in recent times, reads more like a ‘who’s that?’.

Efficient won the Melbourne Cup in 2007 after taking out the Derby the previous year, a feat that had, incidentally, not been achieved for many decades.

Elvstroem went on to have a stellar career after his Derby triumph in 2003, but I would argue that you have to go all the way back to Mahogany in 1993 to find a Derby victor worthy of the champion label. And what a horse he was – still one of my favourites.

The fact remains that the Derby really does seem to be losing its gloss. Researching it might be a worthwhile task, but from what I can recall, some, if not many recent winners have failed to win another event in their careers.

While you might respond that the Derby is a ‘stallion’s race’, such that the winners are often retired to stud shortly after Derby success, this has not always been so.

Others such as Polanski have met with misfortune, but my contention is that the vast majority of recent winners, and placegetters for that matter, have just been relatively ordinary conveyances who, more than anything else, have matured early and probably had the luck in running to feature in the finishes.

That the Derby is run early in the racing season partly explains the quality of the results we are seeing, a point underscored by the fact that the winners of the Australian Derby held at Randwick in the autumn do read as a stronger lot.

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It really does seem though that the issue of horses being bread for speed and consequently, an early return on owners investments, lies at the heart of the problem, if indeed any problem exists.

Whatever one thinks about my comments here, most would agree that Saturday’s Derby looks a really weak race.

Thinkin’ Big deservedly heads the market, but he was bested by a filly two starts back, which is never great form this time of year.

The winner of the Moonee Valley Vase, which has always been a terrific guide, meanwhile, paid over $30, and would shock if he became a weight-for-age or Cups horse any time soon.

The Autumn Sun would have been a short-priced favourite had he started, notwithstanding possible doubts about his staying credentials. Absent Chris Waller’s star runner, it is, as I say, a disappointing final field.

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