The Stayers

We will start with the stayers as that is what the Carnival is all about. Almandin took the biggest prize in Australian racing and returned a Timeform rating of 119 in the process - the second year in a row that a rating of 119 has been enough to win the Cup.

Runner up Heartbreak City ran to 124 in defeat, as again horses having their first run off the plane came up short. It was a fine training performance to bring Heartbreak City to the other side of the world and run a career peak 73 days on from his latest start and it seems just a matter of time until that 'trend' is broken.

Almandin's performance was also highlighted by an outstanding training performance with only Vintage Crop having won the Melbourne Cup off a longer lay-off in the race's recent history.

Third-placed Hartnell ran to 122 after travelling into the race strongly at the corner. He peaked this spring with a rating of 128 when showing high class closing speed in the Turnbull but despite giving a good account was unable to replicate that mark when the emphasis switched to stamina in the Cox Plate and Melbourne Cup.

The Queen Elizabeth carries none of the fanfare of the Cup but it does carry a better winner this year with Francis Of Assisi rated 120+ following his ten-length demolition on the final day.

One way of looking at the race was that Francis Of Assisi primed to peak, coming in second-up off a smart win at Bendigo, and that he was given a perfect chance to belt up on tired stayers. There is probably an element of truth to this but the performance stacked right up against the clock (a timefigure of 122 was bettered only by Flying Artie and Comin' Through for the week) and it's hard not to take a very positive view of what we saw.

There isn't a lot in Francis Of Assisi's profile at home pointing to him being a stayer of note but he has clearly thrived in Australia and of all Charlie Appleby's success this spring this was the real highlight - Oceanographer ran a big closing sectional to win the Lexus but 'only' ran to a rating of 112, the same mark Qewy returned in the Geelong Cup.

Where Francis Of Assisi heads next will be of great interest. Staying races on flat, firm ground in Dubai could be the ideal for him.

From the three-year-olds Prized Icon won an up to scratch Derby and is rated 121 while Lasqueti Spirit ran to 110? when winning a memorable, but far from outstanding, edition of the VRC Oaks with her SP of 100-1 telling the tale somewhat. Brenton Avdulla's winning salute certainly comes with a 'p' attached.

The Milers

The mile race formerly known as the Emirates/Ampol/Honda/George Adams found a new home and it's old name, The Cantala Stakes, for the 2016 Carnival but it remained the same great betting mile we are used to. Le Romain was able to win the race by edging his rating up a pound to 123 on the back of his close up effort in the Epsom, holding off the 111-rated McCreery from the same race.

Somewhat surprisingly for a big field chasing a big purse the race was run at a fairly steady tempo and there were some eye-catching closers in the race but on the back of a string of performances rated above 120 in Sydney Le Romain looks full value for his win.

The Myer was a fairly messy race with plenty of hard luck stories and the winner I Am A Star didn't have to match the form of her Thousand Guineas third to win the race, running to 110 but still rated 113 overall.

Earlier on the card we saw a very promising horse win what looked a red hot running of the Carbine Club. Comin' Through is now rated 113+ and is tipped to leave this form well behind him when we see him again in the autumn.

A rating of 113 is as good as any winner of the Carbine Club in the last 10 years and being at just his third start he has set down the platform to be a very smart performer.

The Chatham was moved from Derby Day this year to accommodate the Cantala switch but it didn't hurt the quality of the typically competitive 1400m race. Rageese matched his best mark of 113 to win a strongly run race but perhaps more interestingly for the remainder of the season was the return to Australia of runner up Arod.

Arod ran to a mark of 121 giving Rageese 5kgs and being beaten just a length. That rating is backed up by a good overall time and there is enough substance to this performance to think that he could return to his best under new trainer Chris Waller. That would have him among our better milers and a key contender for Winxless races come the autumn.

The Sprinters

We've been banging on about the three-year-old sprinting group for some time now and the Coolmore gave us little reason to stop despite a couple of the big guns coming off their peak form.

Flying Artie produced the performance of Cup Week to win the Coolmore, running to a new peak rating of 127 by storming past Astern, Star Turn and Extreme Choice.

Flying Artie had beaten that trio home in the Golden Slipper six months earlier but they had all enhanced their reputations since then and it took a genuine Group 1 performance to knock them all off again.

As mentioned, that trio of beaten runners were all adjudged as being below their best form, but only very slightly in the case of Astern and Star Turn who had little between them when running 1-2 in a very fast Run To The Rose at the start of the spring.

That quartet could raffle the major sprints in the autumn with the Darley Classic showing the older horses to be fairly thin on the ground at the moment. Malaguerra ran to 121 to win the race, up very narrowly from his BTC Cup-winning rating of 120.

Runner up Spieth is now also rated 121 and is still on an upward spiral - the run of the race going against him on the day.

The Tab.com.au Stakes (ex-Yellowglen/ex-Salinger and in reality Linlithgow Stakes) was won by Malaguerra's stablemate Illustrious Lad who ran to 115.

The 1000m sprint on Oaks Day has become something of a Linlithgow Lite in recent years with a string of good winners and Redzel matched the performance of Illustrious Lad with a 115 of his own.

Runner up Terravista returned with a rating of 118 that looks good enough to send him on to Perth with a good chance of winning the Winterbottom. Since winning the Darley Classic of 2014 in high class figures (ran to 128) Terravista's form has been fairly patchy but he's still a very good horse on his day and there was enough in his performance here to think that a return to the low 120's could be on the cards.