Spring Racing Carnival - Derby Super Saturday

Maldivian

It's super Saturday tomorrow for the running of the Victoria Derby with four Group One races on the program. Including the Derby, there is the Coolmore Stud Stakes, a 1200 metre race for three year olds, the Mackinnon Stakes over 2000 metres, the traditional last chance for Melbourne Cup hopefuls to qualify, and the Myer Classic, for fillies and mares, over 1600 metres.

Last week's Cox Plate was won by Maldivian (pictured above) who lead throughout and dictated the pace of the race, thus ruining the chances of the back markers, which included Princess Coup, to gain any headway in the straight. Zipping ran second and Samantha Miss proved her worth by coming a close third. She will be running in the Oaks next week.

Maldivian's trainer Mark Kavanagh had a very successful day, with Whobegotyou easily winning the AAMI Vase and Sea Battle winning the Crystal Mile. It certainly made up for the disappointment he suffered when Maldivian was sensationally scratched from the Caulfield Cup last year. Whobegotyou will be attempting to make it four wins in a row in the Victoria Derby tomorrow. I can't really see anything beating him, though there may be an outsider in the field who will surprise us all.

Princess Coup gets a second chance for Group One glory tomorrow in the Mackinnon Stakes. Also in the field is her old rival Sirmione (who won this race last year), Littorio who lowered Weekend Hussler's colours a few weeks ago, and Sydney horse Theseo, trained by Gai Waterhouse. There is always a question mark over Gai's horses racing in Melbourne, as more often than not they fail to handle the reverse way of going. The Mackinnon Stakes has a long and glorious history, and it has been won by many famous racehorses- Empire Rose, Let's Elope, Better Loosen Up and At Talaq to name a few, who all went on to win the Melbourne Cup the Tuesday following. They bred them tough in those days.

Along with Princess Coup the only other member of my Super Stable running tomorrow is Forensics in the Myer Classic. If it doesn't rain too much tonight (that would be a surprise!) she should have a very good chance. She's a class mare, having won several group one races in the autumn and is also the 2007 Golden Slipper winner. Competing against her are several other smart girls, including Mimi LeBrock, Absolut Glam and Bellini Rose who beat Forensics at her last start. All in all it's a pretty classy field, but I hope Forensics wins - my stable needs a boost.

The Coolmore Stud Stakes has an interesting field totalling nine runners. It will be interesting to see if Northern Meteor who has won his last two races in Sydney by 4 to 5 lengths can repeat that form in Melbourne. He will up against some smart boys such as All American who really has not lived up to his early promise, ditto with Von Costa De Hero, Wilander who has great chance and the unbeaten Fist of Fury. I have been following Captain Fantastic because I like his name, and although he was very competitive in Queensland in the autumn, he hasn't done much since. If he won, it would be a boil over as he's currently at odds of 80/1.

Last week I stumbled across a great horse racing blog called Foolish Pleasure, run by a fellow female in America. It is very well written and Valerie has a keen interest in Australian horse racing as well as following the American scene.

If you're after local tips, I recommend you check out Laurie Sainsbury's tips on the Race Net web site. I've been reading his tips for several months, though not necessarily taking his advice as I rarely bet, but he has tipped some very good long shot winners.

The Vandas Unplugged at Basement Discs

Mikey Madden & Chris Altmann from The Vandas at Basement Discs

It’s been a while since there has been an in store at Basement Discs so today’s mini show was a welcome diversion from the usual run of the mill lunch hour, where I generally go for a constitutional walk down to the centre of the city.

The Vandas have just released their debut full length CD Slow Burn which has been receiving rave reviews in the music press. They are a local four piece rock band, but today they were represented by two members, Chris Altmann and Mikey Madden, playing an acoustic version of some of the songs on the new album, as well as a few from the past.

They were pretty good I thought – their music being a mix of genres from pop to rock to country. One the songs they performed was a Hank Williams type tear jerker which they played wonderfully.

Chris and Mikey took turns with the vocals and also sounded great in harmony, both having quite distinctive voices. Chris sang with a slight American accent and at other times sounded like Aussie icon Paul Kelly. Mikey had a higher register in terms of vocals and came across as Brit Pop.

I must admit, I had not seen these guys before or even heard of them until quite recently. Basement Discs is to be commended for presenting such a diverse range of artists in their wonderful lunchtime in store shows.

Scheduled for November is Charles Jenkins, local singer songwriter and all round lovely guy, Fireside Bellows with the combined talents of Jodie Lane and Tracy McNeil and Justin Townes Earle, who is of course Steve Earle’s son, so that will really be something special.

I will be on recreation leave from work for the next two weeks, oh joy unbounded, though I won’t be going anywhere. I plan to lounge around at home and read, for a start, Neal Stephenson’s new monster novel Anathem.

Also I have just purchased a new desktop computer and will be spending a fair bit of time transferring everything from my old computer onto it. The new computer is sitting in boxes at the moment, but I am really looking forward to seeing how it performs when it’s up and going. By all accounts it should be really speedy and powerful, being equipped with a Core 2 Quad processor and 4 gigabytes of RAM.

Spring Racing Carnival – The Cox Plate

Last Saturday’s running of the Caulfield Cup resulted in a 40/1 winner, the totally overlooked Godolphin horse All The Good who won by a couple of lengths from the New Zealand stayer Nom de Jeu with rank outsider Barbaricus coming third. Weekend Hussler showed definitively that he can’t stay, finishing way back in 12th place. He has now been spelled for the rest of the spring, but will be back in autumn to compete in shorter races, in which he obviously excels.

Mad Rush, the other runner I was interested in, put in an excellent run, being guided by his jockey through the pack of tiring horses to flash into fourth place.

This Saturday sees the running of the second big race of the spring, the Cox Plate at Moonee Valley. It has to be one the weakest Cox Plate fields I have ever seen, but it is not without interest.

One can only speculate on the outcome with such questions as:
Will Samantha Miss live up to her hype and be the first filly to win the race in 30+ years?

Can Princess Coup, fresh from two consecutive Group One victories New Zealand, finally win a Group One in Australia? In autumn she seemed to be the eternal bridesmaid, storming home late to just miss winning.

And how will she handle the Moonee Valley track, on which she will be racing for the first time?

Ditto with Samantha Miss whose previous victories have all been in Sydney against her own age group.

There are only 12 runners in the Cox Plate this year and any one of them could be the winner. The race has yielded some unexpected results in the past - witness Fields of Omagh in 2006 winning the race for a second time at the grand old age of nine.

Princess Coup’s nemesis in the autumn was Sirmione who beat her twice in the Australian Cup and the Mackinnon Stakes, and he, being trained by the great master trainer Bart Cummings, cannot be overlooked. Nor can Zipping or Alamosa be totally ignored.

Mares have a good record in the Cox Plate, so I think I will stick with the girls in particular the Kiwi Princess.

Current hyped colt Whobegotyou is also racing on Saturday in the Group 2 AAMI Vase. His trainer wisely refrained from being tempted with the Cox Plate millions and settling for an easier race, stating he didn’t want to crucify the colt by throwing him into the big end of racing too early in his career.

And the BAFAB Winner is…

…Gautami Tripathy who runs the Reading Room Blog. Actually, Gautami was the only entrant in my BAFAB giveaway (see below) so she wins hands down. Sinai Tapestry is now winging its way to its new home in India. As Gautami has already read one Whittemore book, Jericho Mosaic the fourth volume of the Jerusalem Quartet, she will surely enjoy the first book, Sinai Tapestry.

Biting the Sun – rediscovering Tanith Lee

Rummaging through my fantasy book collection for book covers to display on my Eye Candy for Bibliophiles Blog, I have come to realise that I haven’t looked at, let alone opened many books in this category for several decades. What a wealth of books to be rediscovered are hidden there!

One of the authors whom I was very taken with back in the 1970s, was Tanith Lee. I have practically a whole shelf full of her books, original first edition paperbacks published by DAW Books, including her debut novel The Birthgrave – a rich swords and sorcery fantasy featuring a heroine with super powers. I recently reread it and I must admit I quite enjoyed it. I even read one of its sequels Quest for the White Witch which I liked as well.

However, her most interesting books of that time were Don’t Bite The Sun (1976) and Drinking Sapphire Wine (1977), which are set in a utopian society of the far future. I’ve just reread Don’t Bite The Sun and whilst reading it realised, that although the society is based on a sixties hippy culture of sex and drugs and rock n roll, it has a prescience in relation to today’s popular culture and youth lifestyle. You see, in Lee’s Utopia, a high tech domed world called Four BEE, the populace are encouraged to live their teenage years (which last for centuries) in total abandonment of responsibility, to take drugs (one is called Ecstasy), indulge in free sexual relationships, change bodies and gender at will. They are called Jang and being Jang, as the narrator tells us, is to be conspicuous, wear outrageous clothing and generally act like young racegoers do during the Melbourne racing carnival, - over the top high spirits and generally pretty disgusting.

The nameless heroine and narrator of Don’t Bite The Sun, though Jang to a tee, is dissatisfied with Utopia – a rebel angel in paradise. The novels trace her disillusionment with, and eventual exile from, the Four BEE Eden.

The books are written in a wonderful vernacular style, the heroine grabbing the reader’s sympathy from the word go. I really liked her relationship with her stolen pet and the pet itself, another non conformist – fierce and wild and representative of the natural world outside the dome.

Written, so speak from an insider’s point of view, the heroine has a jaundiced view of her society. As she emerges from Limbo in yet another new body she describes it, “As usual it was depressingly lithe and glamorous…willow waisted, with an exotic bust and long, long scarlet hair” or when referring to her physical environment “Outside it was one of those depressing blue-crystal-golden-drops-of-sunlight afternoons. The weather is always perfect at Four BEE...”

By no means great literature, these books are nonetheless great fun to read and beautifully written– the irrepressible voice of the heroine is thoroughly addictive. Don’t Bite The Sun and Drinking Sapphire Wine are currently available in an omnibus edition entitled Biting The Sun.

There’s a rather good recent review of the omnibus volume by Jo Walton on the Tor Books Blog

Cover artists for the above pictures for those who are interested are Brian Froud (Don't Bite The Sun) and Don Maitz (Sapphire Wine)

Spring Racing Carnival – Caulfield Cup

It’s now officially the Melbourne Spring Racing Carnival even if it has been ongoing for the past few months. On Saturday the first of the big rich Group One races, the Caulfield Cup is to be run.

It’s an intriguing race this year, with any number of interesting runners, including Weekend Hussler who will be out to redeem his failure in the Turnbull a couple of weeks ago. He’s currently at fairly good odds, his last race performance creating doubts as to his ability to win over a mile and a half (2400 metres). I certainly hope he can win and put the mockers on the knockers. He is top weight, so he has his work cut out for him.

The contenders also include Maldivian who caused a sensation last year by rearing in his barrier stall and cutting his head on some television equipment that was fixed to his gate, which resulted in him being summarily scratched from the race. The race was won by Master O’Reilly who is also part of the action this year; though in my opinion he won by default last year. I’m interested to see how the British horse Mad Rush goes and also Guillotine who has drawn a wide gate, but is a lightweight chance.

Several New Zealand stayers are in the mix – Nom De Jeu, Red Ruler and Boundless. It is not wise to doubt their ability these days.

As someone on the Racing & Sports forum said, the Caulfield Cup is a dart board -it’s anyone’s guess which horse will win.

Last week’s Yalumba Stakes yielded a surprise result. Douro Valley, who hardly ever wins anything, snatched the victory from Pompeii Ruler with Guillotine coming third. Douro Valley is also running in the Caulfield Cup – he came second last year, so has a long chance.

The Caulfield Guineas was won by a horse with the peculiar name Whobegotyou, a super star in the making, so the pundits aver. My favoured runner, Time Thief came second. Whobegotyou won very convincingly by several lengths and Time Thief just couldn’t catch him.

The fillies Thousand Guineas, run on Wednesday was won by Gallica with Cat’s Whisker coming second.

Spring Racing Carnival – The Caulfield Guineas

Guillotine

What an old fashioned term "guineas" is! If I recall, a guinea was twenty-one shillings back in the old days of imperial currency. The actual race is worth considerably more than that - $1 million dollars in prize money no less.

The race is for three year old colts and geldings and is run over 1600 metres (a mile in old parlance).

Time Thief is my stable representative in the race. It will be his toughest test to date. However, he is very smart, judging by his previous runs, so has a good chance.

There are two other group one races on the card tomorrow, one being the Yalumba Stakes a weight for age handicap race over 2000 metres. A small field of class competitors will be vying for the money and include Pompeii Ruler, who after returning from a long injury recovery has shown spirit in this spring’s races and will probably start favourite. Guillotine, who I witnessed winning the Dato Tan Chin Nam Stakes is also a major contender along with the New Zealand Derby winner C’est La Guerre and Sirmione the winner of the Australian Cup earlier this year.

The other Group One, the Toorak Handicap has a large field of middle distance runners. It is hard to pick a winner, so I won’t even try a prediction.

I’ve made a few changes to my super stable this week, retiring Tuesday Joy and Sugarbabe and buying a couple of stayers, these being Efficient, last year’s winner of the Melbourne Cup, and Mad Rush a British horse trained by Luca Cumani, here especially for the cups. Cumani’s entry into the cups last year was Purple Moon who did very well coming second to Efficient in the Melbourne Cup. Mad Rush is apparently a similar type of horse to Purple Moon and he will have one of Melbourne’s top jockeys, Damien Oliver as his rider in both the Caulfield and Melbourne Cups.

I have two substitutions left and may use them to acquire a few more stayers closer to the Melbourne Cup.