There's 24 spots. Currently, from what I can find, there are the 5 Australian races and 2 International races that qualify. This issue I see for locals, is that the qualifiers (outside of the Derby) are going to be contested by most of the internationals as lead up races into the cup anyway.

Why not extend the exempt races to include another two or three, outside of the carnival (Summer or Autumn) that allow the narrative to run throughout the year. Give trainers the chance to develop their staying horses and not have to try to rush them into the Victoria Derby if they aren't ready, which many won't be at that time. Bolster the ratings of other VRC races if they want to be parochial about it, while embracing the narrative of local cup horse.

For example... VRC St Leger. Get the Derby & Oaks horses serious about the Cup back from Sydney.. will turn it into a Group race on ratings in no time. April race, gives the staying babies another 5 months to develop, and its a horse that isn't targeted by every colt wanting a stud career so should allow for fields of proper future staying types. Make the St Legers relevant again..

25/04/2019

LISTED

VIC

FLEMINGTON

VRC ST LEGER

2,800m

$200,000

3-Y-O

O

SW

Why not look at having a 2600-2800m race restricted to 3 & 4 year olds exempt from the Cup? Given the nature of the stayers and their PM after many seasons of campaigning, most of the babies don't have a chance of making the field in many of the races they need to be in to get to the cup. Run the week after the Australian Cup, Blamey Stakes day. The stayers from the Australia Cup can step up, it allows the 3yos from the Roy Higgins 2 weeks prior another distance run.. only two races that would be affected would be the Mornington Cup and the Tancred.. and honestly, it should be a different sort of horse that would be targeting it anyway.

Alright.. end rant. Seems like a no-brainer for mine... but would be interested in others thoughts...? 

*Victoria Derby

*LKS Mackinnon Stakes

*Cox Plate

*Caulfield Cup

*Irish St. Leger 

*Tenno Sho (Spring) 

You can see from that ludicrous list that the VRC is not the slightest bit interested in encouraging Australian stayers. Your idea is admirable but doomed by the self interested stupidity of the decision-makers.

You simply put a line through them and forget about them. 

*Victoria Derby

*LKS Mackinnon Stakes

*Cox Plate

*Caulfield Cup

Lexus- ok, great but extremely last minute and horses don't back up like they did in the good old days.

Victoria Derby- ridiculous- don't encourage the few idiots who would take up the offer

Cox Plate- stupid- has there ever been a Melbourne Cup winner get a start by winning the Cox Plate? I cannot imagine a scenario in which this would ever serve the alleged purpose. The Cox Plate is not a race to unearth Melbourne Cup winners.

Caulfield Cup- bulldust- a Caulfield Cup winner will always get a Melbourne Cup slot without an exemption.

Saintly and Makybe Diva were already assured of a cup run- DUR-the Cox Plate will NEVER serve its supposed purpose as a MC exempt race.

At least it does something to encourage locally trained and bred horses toward the Cup as well as renewing an old classic.  

The ANZAC day meeting has always had more potential than it has realized. In addition to a rejuvenation of the St Leger it needs a feature juvenile mile and a proper handicap Cup race to round it out.  

The VRC needs to dedicate the day to the ANZAC ethos, play on the Two-Up, get a few marching bands, free admission to anyone in uniform, make a day of it.  

Well that's an odd coincidence.

May be a bit of a stretch for the 3yos as you'd assume most that are looking good at the trip would be in Sydney for the Oaks/Derby - St Leger would make sense but the Ramsden is asking them to be up for a while...

Still, it's something 

The first ballot clause has brought a few good locals undone. They either overextend at the start of the prep, or leave their run late & miss out.

Why doesn't RVL place a restricted limit on International runners? Obviously, you'd need a timeframe for what constitutes an "International runner". Objective of which is to attract the elite internationals, and may make more of the lesser ones aim at the Dalgety and other Ballot exempt races to push for a spot.

Personally, don't think it would diminish the value of the race, you'd still get the A grade internationals, as it would probably be slightly easier to win, and you'd have local runners in the race, which would encourage local breeding or racing of stayers.

Which horses have done that ?

In other words the VRC committee has to override its way too powerful handicapper and change the conditions of the race.

Make the handicapper earn his wage.

The minimum top weight in a handicap in Victoria is 60 kgs. That should be the case for ALL handicaps no matter the grade.

The handicapper should be weighting the horses from a minimum top weight of 60 down to what ever the bottom weight deserves which could be 35 kgs or less. Obviously when acceptances are taken the top weight will be 60 kgs and the bottom weight will be 50. 

All the weights would have risen until the top weight has 60 kgs, 

It really is not hard.

You could even have a case where if the field holds up the bottom weight has 58 kgs.

kiss, Who would win then when we know nobody can carry that weight ?

 

Someone can correct me if I'm wrong, but I believe placing restrictions on entrants would create issues around its group one status from the blue book/International Cataloguing Standards Committee perspective

When the VRC started twiddling with the idea that the G1 Melbourne Cup should be one on the primary race events in the world they opened themselves and the race to be inundated with all sorts of entrants who were primed to be running in far more quality distance races. Having a readily available quarantine center helped.

Times have changes with the improvements in travel and places where international horses can stop over.

Prior to the 1993 Melbourne Cup traveling was difficult if not impossible. UAE was non-existant. Hong Kong was a restricted place since most foreign horse could not go over there except for their international meet.

For all its worth the Melbourne Cup is really huge postmark in the *International* racing calendar.

Thimk - Global ekonomee and the result is Globally recognized.

OZ trainers and owners should be pushing for increased $ in distance events which were good foundation events.

Return the distances of the Perth Cup, Brisbane Cup and Hobart Cup back to 2 miles.

VRC St Leger and ATC St. Leger back to at least G3.

And stopping playing with races like The Duke of Norf

The races named after them have been conducted on New Years Day for many years.  New Years Day has been a problem date for the VRC throughout its history.  They tried to make it Derby day in the early days but that didn't work out.  Then they made it Grand National day and that didn't work out either.  Then from 1874 they made it Champion Stakes day which was at the time the WFA championship of the colonies but after a decade they moved that race to the Autumn.  Since then they have run the Standish and the Bagot instead.

Bagot was the VRC secretary for many years and basically is the man most responsible for Flemington becoming a grand racecourse.   He is also the bloke who surveyed the Melbourne Cricket Ground.  

Standish is often credited with naming the Melbourne Cup and the invention of the Newmarket Handicap.  He was also the assistant police commissioner of the Ballarat goldfields and cheif commissioner at the time of the hunt for Kelly gang.

The feature double is one of the lost treasures of Australian racing.  It was based on the feature races having having early nomination dates and large initial declarations which gave the feature doubles a ready made build up.  

They worked best with handicaps because these were the most open and competitive races.  This added a level of intrigue regarding who had beaten the handicapper.

These days even the Cups have been reduced to a small nomination no more than a month or two in advance of the race, a compressed handicap and a raft of international raiders.  The Cup double is not a shadow of its former self as a betting medium. 

It was Mallyon and Higgins.  

Moomba Fox had beaten Rajah Sahib (6th) the week before in the Heatherline at Caulfield and copped a 10lb penalty.  Third in the Heatherline was Beer Street who went on to win the Caulfield Cup.

I thought of the first Australian past the post based on the new Singapore International day where the pay the fist local a bonus.

You're correct that this doesn't necessarily rectify the situation of getting more Australian gallopers in the race but I still like the idea, although I also like your points system.

The most aggressive approach would simply to declare half the field must be bred in Australia/NZ but we can hopefully be little more delicate than that.