EXTRA INCENTIVE: LOCAL FORM COUNTS
THOSE yearning for a Melbourne Cup of yesteryear have been granted their wish.
The onslaught of northernhemisphere internationals during the past decade had seen the raiders and newly acquired imports dominate the make-up of Cup fields.
In 2019, there were 11 foreign-trained runners, plus four imports having their first or second starts with Australian trainers.
The year before there were 13 international competitors, with another two imports just off the plane.
But this year’s international representation has plummeted to just four runners – Twilight
Payment, Spanish Mission, Pondus and Sir Lucan.
Pondus is now an import after he was transferred to Robert Hickmott, while Sir Lucan will have his first start for Gai Waterhouse and Adrian Bott. English-trained Away He Goes was ruled out with a tendon injury.
Obviously, Racing Victoria’s tougher veterinary requirements, combined with strict quarantine regulations here, have had an impact on overseas interest in our spring majors. The internationals have made the Cup better, but the foreign upsurge also made it increasingly difficult to line up the form from York, Goodwood or the Curragh.
But this year the local form is relevant.
Toowoomba-bred Incentivise is a dominant favourite – and justifiably so – after the most dominant Caulfield Cup win since
Might And Power in 1997.
Might And Power went on to win the Melbourne Cup.
Incentivise will attempt to become just the 12th horse to win the Cups double, and the first since Ethereal in 2001.
He will have to defy modern history when he carries 57kg, but Incentivise could be a freak.
There’s been four beaten favourites to carry 57kg or more in the Cup since 2010.
Grand Promenade won The Bart Cummings impressively and continues to improve with every run. He might be the best of the remaining locals.
Verry Elleegant was no match for Incentivise in the Turnbull Stakes, but she responded with a huge run in the Cox Plate.
She is following a similar campaign to 2013 Cup winner Fiorente and can fight it out for a top-three finish.
Twilight Payment, the defending champion, has to carry the topweight of 58kg.
No horse has won the Cup with 58kg since
2005, when the iconic Makybe Diva set a weight-carrying record for a mare in her third consecutive triumph.
Twilight Payment is also striving to become the first nine-year-old to win our most famous race.
Twilight Payment turned around his form after fading to finish 28 lengths behind Subjectivist in the Ascot Gold Cup to easily win the Irish St Leger trial.
He then followed up with a close second in the Group 1 Irish St Leger in September, after finishing third last year.
Pondus, former stablemate to Twilight Payment, has had two lead-up runs. And Spanish Mission ran third in the Ascot Gold Cup before a narrow second to champion stayer Stradivarius in the Lonsdale Cup.
Sir Lucan is a northernhemisphere three-year-old, a profile that has produced two winners (Rekindling in 2017 and Cross Counter, 2018) a second (Tiger Moth, 2020) and a third (Il Paradiso, 2019) in the past four years.