3 minute read
Moonee Valley represented the calm before the storm that is the Melbourne Spring Carnival on the weekend.
The McKenzie Stakes meeting was a good one, but in terms of spring-shaping performances it looks fairly light on.
The winner of the feature, Well Sprung, looks a nice horse indeed, but the race was run at a fairly sedate tempo and the result doesn't look like having the sort of bearing on the spring that the past couple of editions have had.
Well Sprung is now rated 100 by Timeform. Nothing to sneeze at for a horse who has had just the two starts, but well short of last year's winner Rich Enuff, who went on to win the Danehill and Guineas Prelude before running second in the Guineas and finishing his spring rated 125.
In 2013 Cauthen ran to 111 by beating subsequent Cox Plate winner Shamus Award and Guineas winner Long John in the race.
Perhaps the horse to take from this year's edition was first-starter Boston Light. It's a lead in itself that the stable was willing to pitch him in here at his first trip to the races and despite very little working out for him he showed glimpses of why he is clearly held in such high regard.
It may not come at this level straight away but there looks sure to be races out there for Boston Light in the very near future.
The other stakes race on the card was the listed Carlyon Stakes which was taken out by the dependable Le Bonsir. It had been a while between wins but his form had remained consistent and a return to the Valley, and a first try at 1000m, clearly played to his strengths.
He has proven vulnerable to improving horses in the recent past, running to his best but unable to live with the likes of Lumosty, Shiraz and the then progressive Lord Of The Sky, and he will probably go on being vulnerable to those on an upward spiral.
Tawteen backed up her good return by running smart figures in the 1200m race, smart figures that originally had looked to be on the verge of blistering. The official time published is reportedly seven lengths too fast, something that we can hope is a soon-to-be-fixed anomaly and not the norm heading into the carnival.
A race well worth having a look at heading towards the Melbourne Spring is the listed Penny Edition Stakes run in Adelaide over the weekend.
The race featured one of the more exciting talents heading into the spring in Alpine Eagle.
Alpine Eagle is rated 119+ by Timeform but was nowhere near that mark on his return, getting well back off a steady pace and showing his inexperience around the tight-turning circuit.
Despite racing keen, bumping, hanging, and generally carrying on like a goose, Alpine Eagle still managed to cut down all bar the well-positioned - and talented in his own right - Riziz, in a race which, from the front, produced the fourth fastest last 600m run on soft ground at Morphettville Parks.
There's a big motor in under Alpine Eagle's hood, his best to date pointing to him being right up to mixing it with the spring's big guns, but he won't be troubling them if he can't figure out how to use it.
If ever there was a penny that race fans would like to see drop, it is surely Alpine Eagle's...