Posted this in other thread but I'll put here too.

Am hoping Cross Counter returns for the Melbourne Cup. By him not winning the Ascot Gold Cup and only running 4th...the door is certainly open to return. Should only get 56kg to 56.5kg, that's a winnable weight for a horse of his calibre.

MELBOURNE CUP
Melbourne Cup weights: It's now harder for Europeans to win

Cross Counter winning the 2018 Melbourne Cup. Photo: Darryl Sherer

Article Author

Ben Dorries1:27PM, 21 June 2019

After rolling out the Melbourne Cup red carpet for international raiders for many years, Victorian officials are now making it harder for northern hemisphere three-year-olds to win the great race.

Racing Victoria's Executive General Manager of Racing Greg Carpenter has revealed an “extensive and exhaustive review” means northern hemisphere three-year-olds will “automatically be more highly weighted (in the Melbourne Cup) in 2019.”

Joseph O’Brien and Charlie Appleby have hit upon a winning formula with the past two Melbourne Cup winners Rekindling and Cross Counter, both European three-year-olds when they won the famous handicap in 2017 and 2018.

Rekindling carried 51.5kg while last year’s winner Cross Counter carried 51kg.

But Carpenter says those results have forced a rethink.

“We have done an extensive and exhaustive review of the weight-for-age scale in Europe and in Australia,” Carpenter told ABC Radio.

“Victoria Racing Club and the Melbourne Racing Club, with the Melbourne and Caulfield Cups this year, have actually altered the benchmark weight for these northern hemisphere three-year-olds.

“So they will actually automatically be more highly weighted in 2019.

“I need to have a look at the success rate of these horses now and make a judgment on – other than the implementation of a higher weight-for-age weight for them – whether or not their form also needs additional weight.

“We don’t stand still when we provide the handicaps for the Melbourne Cup, it's an evolving art, but certainly on the results of the last two years with Rekindling and Cross Counter there has been a review and a change to the way we treat northern hemisphere three-year-olds in the Melbourne and Caulfield Cups going forward.”

Carpenter told the ABC it could also impact the entire Australian racing industry and they way it treats European three-year-olds.

“We have put forward a proposal to Racing Australia to change the allowances under the Australian Rules Of Racing and the weight-for-age scale so that northern hemisphere three-year-olds are not more generously treated here in Australia than they would be if they were actually racing on the same day over the same distance in Europe,” he said.

Related Topics: Melbourne CupMelbourne Cup 2019 Greg Carpenter

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https://www.racenet.com.au/news/melbourne-cup-weights--it-s-now-harder-for-europeans-to-win-20190621

Should an Irish or English Derby winner automatically have more weight than A Victoria or Australian Derby winner who is 6 months older ?

What do you mean Voyager ?   Is the concept of the WFA scale outdated or are the values of the WFA scale outdated ?

Never given it any thought.

When was his last year ?

I remember Swain was given 63 kgs the year he was entered.

It all depends on the entries.

If the best horse is a group 3 horse they should be asked to carry 60 kgs.

Tontonan wrote: What do you mean Voyager ?   Is the concept of the WFA scale outdated or are the values of the WFA scale outdated ? The concept has remained the same for 150 years but the values have changed almost constantly. The values have never been set in stone.   The whole purpose of the scale was to encourage horses of different ages and sexes to race against one another = more competition.   It that sense it has worked ... up to  point.

The concept is outdated.

The proliferation of champion mares over the last ten years at least, shows that mares should not get an allowance. They should be carrying the same as the males, of a similar age. If you take Winx and Black Caviar out, you still have mares like Zenyatta, Treve, the Japanese mares and in Australia we have seen mares like Bonneval, Jamekha, Miss Andretti, Tuesday Joy, More Joyous, Southern Speed as well as the 3yos like Maid In Heaven and Mosheen and Miss Finland and Mystic Journey, beat the boys more regularly than in previous eras.

If we use the wfa scale, then Makybe Diva if she was a male, would have been given 60 kilos for her the 2005 cup, but I still think that was a kilo light.

If So You Think had run twenty years before his cup in 2010, he would have been given 58 instead of 56.5. Now you can say that the fields are about two kilos at least, better than 1990, but if that is correct then the older horses at least the Australian and NZ horses are being weighted correctly.

However the spring 4yo's, especially those who have won a oaks or derby, are still getting the same amount of weight, or more, because of the lighter minimum these days, which means those horses are in about two kilos to heavy, so because of the spring 4yo wfa weight scale, they are being penalised because they are being given a similar weight or close to the weights of the older horses.

Ace High won the VRC Derby, and was second in the ATC Derby. He had 55 kilos.

Now Naturalism, who did not run as spring 4yo, because he went to Japan for the cup, was given if my memory is correct 53, or 54, yet his form is very similar, he ran second in the spring and won the Sydney derby.

Now the horses behind Naturalism were Veandercross, Air Seattle, Cavallieri and some other stayers who went on to group 1 glory. Ace High's field has not produced a group 1 winner. So I am just having a very hard time gaining a logical reason, why the handicapper is looking at and has actually modified the weights for all groups of stayers nominated for the cup, especially the top and bottom ends of the weights scale, but he has ignored the local 4yo's, especially those who have won an oaks or derby.

If we use the Caulfield Cup as a guide, the 4yo's have been given winnable weights there and combined with the fact that the overseas stayers in that race, have up until last year been a lower level than those which race at Flemington, the 4yo's have a good record recently in that race with Jamekha and Mongolian Khan winning and others running placings.

I am just wondering how the wfa scale being used as a guide, is relevant to weighting horses in the cup.

I think the handicapper is underestimating the relevance of the older horses having that extra twelve months of racing under the wfa weight. Males only get 56.5 kilos in the ATC Derby, which is restricted to their own age, and where they are racing a field of horses which may only have two or three genuine 2400m horses engaged. Yet 6 or 7 months down the track, they only get 1.5 or 2 kilos less, when they are taking on well seasoned, genuine stayers at a distance which they have never raced at. There has to be some compensation for the classic winners here in Australia with their weights, but they seem to, me, to be the most harshly weighted group of horses in the race.      

Falcon Eight is a very impressive progressive horse.. Weld has a good one

Jamal I'm pretty sure the 4yo's still get a smaller weight than the 5yo's on the WFA scale at Cup time.

Well you didn't mention the WFA scale in relation to Brew...

SkyDancer wrote: You answered your own question Jamal. Brew was a donkey hence the low weight

The donkey who won a Melbourne Cup..good effort..

TOLEDO wrote: Brew's form before the campaign he won the Melb cup was very poor so he got the low weight. He qualified by winning the lexus, on his form after the weights came out he probably would have ended up with 52kg or so. From memory he won the bart cummings, 2nd in the moonee valley cup and won the lexus all after weights were released

Correct - Brew won The Bart Cummings but at the time it was called The Japan Trophy race and was a Listed race, also there was no Melbourne Cup ballot excemption for the winner.

See below Brew's campaign.



Brew's Melbourne Cup Lead-Up Campaign

2000, Brew (NZ) - six year old gelding, won Cup from barrier 22:

10th – Listed Heatherlie Stakes: 56.5kg (1700m hcp at Caulfield) – Kerrin McEvoy

11th – Listed Naturalism Stakes: 54kg (2000m Qlty hcp at Caulfield) – Steven King

1st – Listed Japan Trophy: 54kg (2559m Qlty hcp at Flemington) – Darren Beadman

2nd – Group 2 Moonee Valley Cup: 55kg (2500m SWP at Moonee Valley) – Brett Prebble

1st – Group 2 Saab Quality: 56.5kg (2500m Qlty hcp at Flemington) – Chris Munce

1st – Group 1 Melbourne Cup: 49.5kg (3200m hcp at Flemington) – Kerrin McEvoy

Total Metres Run Prior to Cup Win: 11,259 metres. Trainer: Mike Moroney