Andrew Eddy discusses all the big ‘what if’ moments ahead of an action-packed Group 1 weekend.
Racing in 2026 will look a lot different for Aeliana if she wins the Cox Plate…
Chris Waller has ensured that his still-developing Aeliana avoided the major staying handicaps this spring, but if he is right about the mare’s potential, then the spring Cups may be gone for her forever.
Waller this week likened Aeliana to Winx before her first Cox Plate win in 2015 and if she can emulate the former superstar on Saturday and then start 2026 with more of the same, future Caulfield and Melbourne Cups will quickly slip out of sight.
“She’s a very similar horse to Winx in terms of where she is at when Winx had her first Cox Plate,” Waller said on Tuesday at The Valley.
“She’s no Winx, but she’s not far off.
“She’s just got to have that continued improvement as she gets older. I just think it’s the perfect fit for Aeliana.”
Winx quickly raced herself out of handicap contention in her four-year-old season. In the autumn following her first Cox Plate, she won the G2 Apollo Stakes (1400m) at $1.60, the G1 Chipping Norton (1600m) at $1,35, the G1 George Ryder Stakes (1500m) at $1.90, before the final handicap run of her career when she tore apart the 2016 Doncaster (1600m) field to score at $1.80 with a sizeable 56.5kg impost.
She was going to be asked to carry massive weights in the 2016 spring Cups – for which she was the hot opening favourite – but she wasn’t even nominated.
If Aeliana wins the Cox Plate and makes a similar destructive impact next autumn as did Winx, then she, too, is likely to stay in weight-for-age company for the rest of her career.
The final Melbourne Cup golden ticket goes to…
The Moonee Valley Cup on Friday night packs a big punch as far as the Melbourne Cup goes in its first year of providing its winner with a ballot-free run into next month’s $10 million feature. But it is a race that has often shaped the Melbourne Cup and no more famously than a decade ago in 2015.
That year’s winner was The United States, who copped a 2.5kg penalty for his Valley win into the Melbourne Cup, where he could only finish 14th as a $21 chance.
It was a different matter for the horse he toppled at The Valley. Prince Of Penzance got beaten half a length and so missed a Melbourne Cup penalty before shocking the racing world with his Melbourne Cup win at $101.
The move by the Victoria Racing Club to issue Moonee Valley with its final golden ticket came off the back of data that indicates the Moonee Valley Cup is these days seen to be ideally placed 11 days out as a final lead-in to Flemington.
The VRC scrapped the Archer Stakes from final day and put it on in September because it was becoming less and less popular as a springboard into the Melbourne Cup, being just three days before the great race.
The Moonee Valley Cup link to the Melbourne Cup, however, has been strengthened over time as proven last year when seven of the 10 from the Valley made their way into the Melbourne Cup field with the Moonee Valley Cup winner Okita Soushi finishing third in the big one at Flemington.
If you backed the King’s horse to win the Melbourne Cup…
You shouldn’t have ripped it up just yet despite Gilded Water again missing a golden ticket into the Melbourne Cup when beaten into second place in the Geelong Cup.
The runner-up’s prize of $90,000 saw Gilded Water rise from 42nd to 40th in order, which has him precariously placed in the race to make the final 24 by next Saturday’s final declaration time.
The 50 horses left in Melbourne Cup contention will be further cut on Monday morning at third declarations, with the followers of Gilded Water needing quite a drop-off ahead of him to move significantly up the order.
He is one of nearly 20 horses on the limit weight of 51kgs with those horses sorted via recent prizemoney earned, so horses such as Cleveland (45th) and So You Are (49th) could go above him with prominent placings in Friday night’s $750,000 race.
So too could a group of fringe players set to run in next Wednesday’s Bendigo Cup.
WATCH: The 2025 Geelong Cup