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Opinion

What happened to Aussie stayers?

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Roar Guru
30th October, 2020
14

Victorian racing introduced what could be a great innovation in support of the Everest meeting at Randwick.

It was called the Caulfield Cup. Or so it seemed.

The Everest, also known as the Subterranean, received hectares of media coverage, while the cup ran a distant second and was hardly sighted.

And this year COVID-19 meant the Subterranean couldn’t host the Hooray Harrys and Harriettes who form a large part of the crowd in what is a marketed social day.

The notable factor was that 82-year-old Les Bridge trained the winner, adding to the Melbourne Cup and Golden Slipper he can claim in his long career.

For any racegoer the real story was, or should have been, Verry Elleegant beating an English Derby winner in the Caulfield Cup.

This would have been a major story in any pre-Subterranean time, but was notable because Australia still has one genuine Group 1 performer past 1600 metres in the mighty mare.

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It is her lonely task to protect what’s left of Australian racing in the time-honoured classics.

Several Caulfield Cups, the last two Cox Plates, Caulfield Stakes, Queen Elizabeth Stakes, even 1600-metre Group 1s are all won by marauding overseas visitors.

Addeybb, not a top-level English Group 1 performer, can look like a world beater here.

Any distance race is stacked with northern visitors bought cheap because they can run metres past 1600 metres.

And then there is the Melbourne Cup, last won by a local bred in Shocking in 2009. Will there ever be another one?

Brave as she is, Verry Elleegant is unlikely to repel genuine Group 1 performers like the English Derby winner Anthony Van Dyck, the Cox Plate’s Sir Dragonet and the hardened handicappers in the cup.

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Worse. If there weren’t overseas entrants, could Australia produce a full field? Most might drop dead asked to run the distance.

How did Australian racing come to be destroyed?

It’s easy to sheet a lot of blame at NSW racing boss Peter V’landys.

Peter V’landys

(Photo by Matt King/Getty Images)

The Subterranean and the Miner Bird, also known as the Golden Eagle, are his innovations. It was his choice to unbalance the traditional sequence of NSW-Victorian autumn and spring carnivals by putting NSW in direct competition.

The Subterranean may be billed as the world’s richest race on turf, but although marketing might make it a social day for the Hooray Harrys and Harriettes, it won’t and can’t attract overseas visitors.

Australian sprinters are the fastest in the world, no doubt. They’re bred to be that.

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Eduardo ran a tick over 20 seconds for 400 metres in the middle of this year’s Subterranean, which was astonishing, before finishing down the track, unsurprisingly.

And you’d get virtually the same field for $2 million, but without the marketing and glamour.

V’landys has provided a full rugby league season, which seemed impossible back in May. This has been one of the great administrative performances, and the sport will be forever in his debt.

The symbolic start of racing’s decline is obvious: the Golden Slipper.

Time was when Slipper winners were expected to train on: the Todmans, Sky Highs, Vains, Baguettes, Toy Shows…

But 2012 winner Pierro was the last to become a three-year-old Group 1 performer before starting a successful stud career. Recent winners Vancouver and Capitalist had early spring starts without winning before being packed off to stud.

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The Slipper is now a colt’s grand final. Win and a stud career is assured, and the Ponzi scheme continues.

The once time-honoured 3200-metre Brisbane Cup provides as sad a symbol of decline as any. Now 2400 metres, it was tacked on as the last race on Stradbroke Day at the Brisbane winter carnival.

Meanwhile, a Winx comes along but once. Carbine, Phar Lap, Peter Pan, Bernborough, Tulloch, Kingston Town… it’s unlikely another name will join them. RIP.

Perhaps there will be a breeding freak like Gunsynd, out of a Star Kingdom sire and a Newtown Wonder mare.

Perhaps some patient, farseeing breeder will purchase some mares with staying blood from here, there or anywhere and breed them with a Reliable Man or Pierro.

That’s a 100-1 shot.

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