racing_news/

Melbourne Cup Betting Preview
02/11/09

Billed by the Aussies as “The Race That Stops A Nation” the Melbourne Cup always takes place on the first Tuesday in November, this year it falls on the 3rd.

The race run over nearly two miles is a handicap and attracts the best staying horses from the Southern Hemisphere and more recently European horses. There will be a maximum field of 24 runners.

The head of the market is congested with three horses vying for favouritism. Alcopop the winner of the Herbert Power, Viewed the 2008 Melbourne Cup Winner and Efficient the 2007 Champion. Bookmakers cannot separate them at around the 6/1 mark.

When you have a market like this it points to one of those three horses ultimately being successful and we would side with the better weighted Alcopop, who only has to carry 52.5 KG. Efficient and Viewed are joint top weights and will both shoulder 58 KG.

Alcopop is unbeaten this season, and is the ideal Melbourne Cup winner’s age at 5. He comes into the race fresh from that Group 2 Herbert Power Stakes over 2400 metres beating many prospective Melbourne Cup horses. The bookmakers look to be trying to keep on the right side of this horse and we expect a very bold show on Tuesday.

There is genuine each way value with 4 places on offer from the bookies and this looks to be the angle we should try and exploit with the quality horses sent from Europe. The best of these we thought would be Cima De Troimphe from the Luca Cumani stable, this is a genuine Group1 horse but was very disappointing in the Caulfield Cup and our confidence is considerably dented and it now looks like a non runner.

Cumani's other representative is Basaltico and we like his chances at a working man’s price of around 50/1 with Betfair. Basaltico was given a poor ride in our opinion in his prep race and was finishing like a train when 7th in the Geelong Cup. We know he will get the distance having run a creditable third at Nad Al Sheba in February over 3200 metres.

We also think the Gary Moore trained Mouriylan now controversially owned by Ramzan Kadyrov the president of Chechnya has an outstanding form chance. This horse was second in the Group 2 Goodwood Cup a repeat of that run would see the 5 year old in the shake up.

When you delve deeper into the European horses all look to be in with a shout but history tells us that the Aussie and New Zealand trainers will not let go of the Melbourne Cup lightly. They have a very strong home team with Roman Emperor and Shocking both big each way prices and both expected to run well.