Cox Plate final field barrier draw
Well here it is, what we have been waiting for, the Cox Plate final field and barrier draw, notice the one glaring omission?. “Yep no Weekend Hussler“, whether you think he should have ran on not is entirely up to you, but as always our arch enemy, the evil doing Bookmaker has taken us poor happless punters to the cleaners again, if you were one of the unfortuates that loaded up on Weekend Hussler in the Pre-post markets, the buggers got the lot, and just to jam our testicles into the car door for fun, they cleaned up again with Saturdays Caulfield Cup, taking a bag full of bets on both Weekend Hussler and Littorio, a horse that had only ever won a maiden race prior to his success in the Turnbull.
So you guessed it, our International war on bookmakers score now stand at “Bookmaker 3436, Punters Nil“
And that brings us to the Cox Plate, lets hope us punters show a little more restraint and fore thought when laying down our bets for this weekend, “oh well nice idea in theory” regardless though, here’s a little bit of the good oil, if you are considering backing either Samantha Miss or Princess Coup at there current prices, “give the game away” a month ago they were cracking good bets, and well worth the risk of an investment, now though with Samantha Miss showing around $4.00 and Princess Coup around $3.80 with Centrebet you really should be thinking twice about risking your hard earnt.
The reason why, well its easy really, firstly Samantha Miss, she a top filly, but realistically still very much an unknown, although she has been dominant in the Sydney fillies races, its a big ask to step up from there to go into battle against some very seasoned WFA performers in a high pressure race such as the Cox Plate, add into that the likely lack of quality of the 3yo fillies shes been up against, makes the $4.00 on offer very poor value.
Princess Coup, make no mistake she is a first rate race horse, and if she gets conditions to suit on the day will run past these like they were nailed to the fence, I heard and read a few dicussion over the last few weeks, with the silliest being that although she is a good horse In Kiwi land, she can’t cut it over here in Oz, “crikey no wonder bookies drive big expensive cars“.
Getting conditions to suit is the issue though, for her to produce her best she needs a solid tempo up front and clear running when it matters, a solid tempo is something she may not get, there is no obvious pace in the race, so if Maldivian or any other runner for that matter leads then theyr’e not going to be ridden into the ground and be a sitting shot, so if it develops into a sit and sprint, then in all seriousness anyone of the 12 can win, it will come down to which gets the run on the day, so again at $3.80 she just shouldn’t be considered a good bet.
Anyways enough of the clueless ramblings from me, the final field and barrier draw for the Cox plate is below, I shall post my free form rating here some time Friday for those that are interested.
| No | Horse | Trainer | Jockey | Barrier | Weight |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | SIRMIONE | Bart Cummings | Damien Oliver | 8 | 59 |
| 2 | MALDIVIAN (NZ) | Mark Kavanagh | Michael Rodd | 6 | 59 |
| 3 | ZIPPING | John Sadler | Danny Nikolic | 5 | 59 |
| 4 | THESEO | Gai Waterhouse | Nash Rawiller | 12 | 59 |
| 5 | MASTER O’REILLY (NZ) | Danny O’Brien | Vlad Duric | 11 | 59 |
| 6 | RAHEEB | Anthony Cummings | 10 | 59 | |
| 7 | ALAMOSA (NZ) | Mick Price | Craig Newitt | 7 | 57.5 |
| 8 | C’EST LA GUERRE (NZ) | John Sadler | Steven Arnold | 3 | 57.5 |
| 9 | PRINCESS COUP | Mark Walker | Opie Bosson | 9 | 57 |
| 10 | GALLANT TESS | David Payne | Corey Brown | 4 | 57 |
| 11 | ZARITA (NZ) | Pat Hyland | Dwayne Dunn | 1 | 55.5 |
| 12 | SAMANTHA MISS | Kris Lees | Glen Boss | 2 | 47.5 |
Tags: Cox Plate, Mooney Valley