VRC Derby
|
1 |
FORGOT YOU (NZ) |
[0.52/2.03] |
[12-9-17-2-4] |
|
2 |
TUTUKAKA (NZ) |
[0.09/1.06] |
[2-6-17-7-0] |
|
3 |
ALEGRON |
[0.27/1.31] |
[4-7-12-7-0] |
|
4 |
GUNSTOCK (NZ) |
[-0.07/0.91] |
[3-8-20-9-4] |
|
5 |
AKIHIRO |
[0.88/3.80] |
[7-8-8-1-0] |
|
6 |
CHARACTER |
[0.17/1.07] |
[4-5-13-8-0] |
|
7 |
JUNGLE MAGNATE (NZ) |
[0.14/1.36] |
[2-7-12-3-2] |
|
8 |
COMMANDER HARRY (NZ) |
[-0.34/0.60] |
[2-2-16-7-5] |
|
9 |
HITOTSU |
[0.68/2.38] |
[6-4-11-1-0] |
|
10 |
CERBERUS |
[0.22/1.24] |
[7-6-25-6-2] |
|
11 |
GUNDEC |
[0.40/1.50] |
[4-4-8-4-0] |
|
12 |
CLYDE |
[0.58/1.67] |
[8-0-14-2-0] |
|
13 |
EL ROCKO |
[0.78/2.87] |
[17-14-24-3-0] |
|
14 |
RAGING BULL |
[0.63/3.00] |
[6-11-11-0-2] |
|
15 |
CHEERFUL MOMENT (NZ) |
[0.88/5.40] |
[6-16-10-0-0] |
|
16 |
TEEWATERS |
[0.16/1.06] |
[6-1-19-4-2] |
|
17e |
ZOUMON |
[0.79/2.45] |
[14-6-14-4-0] |
|
18e |
SEBASTIAN THE FOX |
[0.26/1.24] |
[6-7-23-4-2] |
|
19e |
KING OF PHARAOHS |
[0.19/1.26] |
[2-8-9-7-0] |
|
20e |
SPIRIT OF GAYLARD (NZ) |
[0.28/1.58] |
[2-11-23-4-0] |
Time for the wonderful VRC Derby even if it is only a shadow of its former glory. Do yourself a favour and have a look at Turf Monthly as we have featured some of the great winners of the race over time in the last few editions including the last horse in a generation to have won both the Derby and Melbourne Cup in Efficient, still rated one of the best gallopers that Rob Hickmott has ever trained. On that note, for those thinking about backing Johnny Get Angry in the Cup next week, you cannot underestimate the difficulty of his task, and I doubt if history will rate him as one of our best Derby winners. Anyway, I digress, so on to this year's Derby.
Again, past races give us a good indication of what dosage ranges we can expect the winner to come from. Eight out of the last eleven winners have had a dosage index under 1.53 so I am going to suggest that we can probably put a line through runners outside this range. Sadly that means that the favourite, Forgot You is going to have to be left out of the main chances. Of course, we are only talking about the winner here, so if you like him, by all means put him into your multiples. We have to also remember that often a horse that runs second in the Derby proves the better horse over time. The legendary Carbine being a notable runner up in the Derby as was Octagonal in more recent times, even though he had won the Cox Plate only a week before. We can narrow this down even further as we see the most likely ranges to be around 0.80 and around 1.40 to 1.50. We have had one winner around 1.10 and there are plenty of runners close to this mark.
When we narrow it all down, I will be on Gunstock who just looks the ideal type for the race. His win in the Norman Robinson was outstanding and if you can ignore the wide barrier, then he is clearly on top.