Derby winner apt favourite

MELBOURNE: Anthony Van Dyck is a deserving favourite to win tomorrow’s Caulfield Cup for trainer Aidan O’Brien despite history counting against the 2019 Epsom Derby winner.

He is a Derbywinning son of the greatest thoroughbred stallion on the planet and he is the best horse sent to Australia by one of the most successful trainers the world has known.

Anthony Van Dyck undoubtedly has class to match his pedigree — he has speed and stamina to go with it.

The son of Galileo is the seventh of Irish trainer Aidan O’Brien’s eight Epsom Derby winners, and is one of the four original Caulfield Cup topweights he has supplied in the past five years.

It is this issue that could be his most formidable obstacle.

In the 27 years that European horses have been regular spring visitors to Melbourne, it is the classier, more heavily handicapped of them that have invariably struggled.

Only one original topweight has won the race in its 140year history. That was French entire Dunaden who carried 58kg in 2012, the year after he had won the Melbourne Cup.

Anthony Van Dyck is handicapped to carry 58.5kg, and no horse since Tobin Bronze (61.5kg) in 1967 has carried more than 58kg to victory.

After winning last year’s Derby, Anthony Van Dyck’s form held up with placings in the Irish Champion Stakes and the Breeders’ Cup Turf at Santa Anita.

He failed in Hong Kong in his last run as a 3yrold before running second to Ghaiyyath in the Coronation Cup at Newmarket, followed by a fifth on unsuitably soft ground in the group 2 Hardwicke Stakes at Royal Ascot.

Anthony Van Dyck sealed a trip to Melbourne by beating Stradivarius in the Prix Foy over 2400m at Longchamp last month.