Jardine gives Melbourne Cup go-ahead to Ebor hero Nakeeta
Nakeeta will attempt to turn Ebor success into Melbourne Cup glory after trainer Iain Jardine announced himself happy with an allocation of 53kg for his stable star when weights were revealed on Tuesday.
The Dumfries-based trainer will be following in the footsteps of Luca Cumani and, most recently, Tony Martin, who have used victory in Europe’s richest Flat handicap as a springboard for the ‘race that stops a nation’.
Nakeeta, should he end up carrying 53kg, would be racing off the same mark as Martin’s Heartbreak City, who was beaten a head by Almandin in the 2016 Cup but sadly suffered fatal injuries in a gallop in May.
Having consulted owners Alex and Janet Card, Jardine gave the green light on Tuesday morning.
“We had a good chat yesterday and I think we’ll have a crack,” he said. “He has the same weight as Heartbreak City last year and a similar profile so we’ll have a go.
“The Victoria Racing Club people are fairly sure he’ll get a run off that mark. He’s come out of York well and he’ll go straight to the Cup.”
With Big Orange missing out on the trip down under, Britain’s next most high-profile contender after Nakeeta is the Sir Mark Prescott-trained St Michel, who has been allotted 54kg.
Order Of St George must carry defy historic burden.
Irish St Leger winner Order Of St George has been given top weight in the Cup for the second straight year and the handicapper says he will be bitterly disappointed if the horse doesn’t take up the challenge on November 7.
Order Of St George will carry 58kg if he does run at Flemington, which would be half a kilo more than last year’s third Hartnell and 1.5kg more than defending champion Almandin.
Weight converter
58kg = 9st 2lb
54kg = 8st 7lb
53kg = 8st 5lb
Racing Victoria’s chief handicapper Greg Carpenter said of Order Of St George’s wide-margin win at the Curragh on Sunday: “The challenge is always that the general public will look at a race where he wins by nine lengths and have an automatic reaction that he should be much higher in the weights.
“But Makybe Diva is the only horse with 58 kilograms who’s been able to win in the last 40 years, and we’ve seen Vinnie Roe and Yeats and Septimus travel to Australia with that sort of weight and not be able to win.”
Order Of St George ran in the Arc last year, finishing third, instead of at Flemington and may do so again. Carpenter hopes otherwise.
“He’s been nominated the last three years and I will be bitterly disappointed if he doesn’t travel to Australia this year,” he said.
“The reason I’m so keen to see Order Of St George travel to Australia is for the last three years he’s been one of the powerhouses of European staying.
“I think that we would see a world-class stayer if he came here. Aidan O’Brien has had eight runners in the Melbourne Cup now. His best finish was Mahler, who ran third.”
Johannes Vermeer is the next of O’Brien’s entrants in the weights, on 54.5kg. The Willie Mullins-trained pair of Max Dynamite, runner-up in 2015, and Wicklow Brave are both on 54kg.
In the Caulfield Cup, Hartnell is on 58kg and would give half a kilo more to Almandin, who is on the same 56.5kg as he is currently set to be for his Melbourne Cup defence.
Order Of St George has not been nominated for that race, but plenty of other European challengers have, including the Mullins pair and St Michel, all of whom are on 54kg.
Carpenter also announced a change to the penalty structure between the two races. If the winner of the Caulfield Cup should have less than 56kg to carry at Flemington, they will not be penalised to go over that weight. Any horse due to carry 56kg or more would not be penalised.
Carpenter said the change had been reached in consultation with the Victoria Racing Club, which hosts the Melbourne Cup, and Melbourne Racing Club, which holds the Caulfield Cup, and was designed to reinvigorate the link between Australia’s two premier staying handicaps.
Viewed in 2008 is the only Melbourne Cup winner in the past ten years to have contested that year’s Caulfield Cup compared to seven in the decade before.
Carpenter said the same logic would be applied to any other race where the winner was liable for a weight penalty after the release of Melbourne Cup handicaps.
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fonte : RacingPost
