If you stare blankly at Melbourne Cup form guides and don’t know your fillies from your furlongs, fear not, we’ve got a simple way to help you choose a horse to back in the main event — and it’ll be over in 60 seconds.
The biggest thing to take note of is the late scratching of the John O’Shea trained runner Athabascan.
There are a range of trends and hoodoos over the great race’s long history that mean a number of horses can quickly be ruled out of contention.
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First up, we can cast aside the outsiders. Just three horses in the past three decades — Twilight Payment ($27 in 2020), Prince Of Penzance ($101 in 2015) and Viewed ($41 in 2008) — have won the race at odds higher than $20.
ATHABASCAN ($51) is out of the running after being withdrawn on the eve of the race because of cardiac arrhythmia found in a final vet inspection on Monday.
Trainer John O’Shea was furious with the decision by VRC vets, and continued to criticise the decision on Tuesday morning.
Speaking on Sky Sports Radio, O’Shea was scathing of Racing Victoria stewards and even hinted he will prioritise taking his horses to race in NSW in future.
“It’s a pretty hollow feeling. It was really, really disappointing to say the least.”
He said his team had done all due diligence in assessing the horses’ condition and was confident the runner was fit for the race.
“To say that it’s confusing is an understatement. 스포츠토토사이트 That’s why NSW has gained so much traction in this area because there’s no consistency (in Victoria). People now, and us included, we’re just running in NSW.
“I think it was very naughty of them to diagnose it as cardiac arrhythmia because one of the guides for cardiac arrhythmia, is you do a blood test which is called a component test, so we actually did that yesterday. If you have a horse with cardiac arrhythmia, the component levels will be out of normal.”
He went on to say: “He passed all the tests. We did all the due diligence. All the things a normal vet would require.”
Athabascan, who finished runner-up in the 2024 Sydney Cup and was to by Zac Lloyd, was rated a $67 chance at the time of his scratching.