No Melbourne Cup for Gold Cup winner

Two of the traditional lead ups to the Melbourne Cup have now been won by horses who won't take their place next Tuesday. Saracen Knight was a comfortable winner of the Herbert Power, which would've guaranteed a spot in the Caulfield Cup, and Francesco Guardi was dominant in the Group 2 Moonee Valley Gold Cup (2500m) on Saturday.

Both video watchers and data analysts could hardly miss his run last start in the Group 3 Bart Cummings (2500m), nearly falling mid race before flying home off a slow tempo to just miss Lunar Flare.

He posted a new peak figure with Timeform of 108+ at Flemington which would already make him a contender in the Melbourne Cup with a low weight if he were to make the field, but his win on Saturday would see him nearly the horse to beat next week.

A figure of 118 is approaching Group 1 weight-for-age standard in Australia (I like to loosely put the benchmark at 120) and is better than nearly all current Melbourne Cup contenders have run in recent times.

Gold Trip ran 123 when second in the Caulfield Cup, giving Durston (110) 6kg, 121 in the Turnbull Stakes and 118 on Saturday in the Cox Plate without the best of luck.

Deauville Legend sits atop the Melbourne Cup betting at 100-1 (max bet $10)… sorry, 5-1 with TAB, having most recently run 120 when winning the Voltigeur at York, that form getting a handy boost here with El Bodegon (3rd at York) running an excellent race in the Cox Plate.

Unfortunately, Francesco Guardi's performance means very little for the Melbourne Cup as he isn't paid up, Chris Waller suggesting there's always next year. Unfortunately, next year he'll probably have won more races and be up in the handicap. In this thin year, he would've been the #1 local seed. If he races on this preparation, he'd be close to a good thing in the Group 3 Queens Cup (2600m, formerly Queen Elizabeth Stakes) on Champion's Day.

It took a ten-length win by the hurdler, Francis Of Assisi, to post a better recent rating to win the Queens Cup, with Warning winning the race last year, running 116, True Self (112, 116) and Jaameh (112) other previous winners not up to what Francesco Guardi did on Saturday.

Of the others out of the Moonee Valley Gold Cup, I don't think any are up to winning a Melbourne Cup. Lunar Flare looked the beneficiary of the right run behind a slow pace in the Bart Cummings and matched her rating of 109 despite the 4.2 length turnaround by Francesco Guardi.

Waller may have been happy saying Francesco Guardi will be a better horse next year, but racing doesn't always work like that, and I bet connections would be kicking themselves they aren't racing next week.