Caulfield Guineas / Steve Mcghee / 02 October 2009 / Leave a comment Bet Now View Market

By Steve McGhee

The three-year-old class on display this spring is exciting many seasoned scribes, serious handicappers and Timeform disciples because some of the crop looks to be the next wave of turf titans that will stand up and deliver for many years to come in many ways.

Yogi Berra, a Hall of Fame major league baseball player and manager, is even more famous for his quotes that get the point across perfectly but in a rather mangled word way and he is responsible for the title of this article.

Déjà vu is certainly the most apt way to describe what looks to be happening this season and it will step up to the plate at Caulfield on October 10, where you could well catch a perfect game.

We will get to see some of the finest looking and performing three-year-olds on that date in the $1 million The Age Caulfield Guineas (1600m), which is shaping as the most anticipated running of the race for a very long time.

It was the 1995-1996 season that the most phenomenal and meaningful three-year-old crop graced the grass of racetracks in Australia and the future big race wins and sires and epic contests an elite foursome would provide, is now of course legendary.

The group of four that stood out that particular season and the almost exact connection of three of them to right here and now on an equine scale is eerie.

Octagonal and Saintly were the super stars and you could say the John Lennon and Paul McCartney of the 'fab four' in the 1995-1996 season, while Nothin' Leica Dane (Ringo Starr) and Filante (George Harrison) made up the wonder group magnificently.

Nothing has come close to that three-year-old crop in terms of Group race achievement on raceday and at stud since but the current batch has all the hallmarks of a second coming.

John Hawkes trained Octagonal for the Woodlands Stud and Crown Lodge racing operation, while Bart Cummings bred and trained Saintly and owned him in partnership with Dato Tan Chin Nam.

Gai Waterhouse trained Nothin' Leica Dane and Jack Denham trained Filante.

The training names and/or connections of three of those above just happen to be involved with three of the current most favoured four runners in the 2009 Caulfield Guineas.

Denman, the colt with the oil-painting looks and physique, is the current Caulfield Guineas favourite and he is trained by Peter Snowden, the long time foreman for John Hawkes and now the outright trainer for Darley Stud and Sheikh Mohammed, who purchased Woodlands Stud and Crown Lodge just over a year and a quarter ago.

The colt has won six of his seven starts and was placed the other time but poignantly he has won six in a row as a three-year-old and is an awesome specimen but that should be no surprise.

Denman is by Lonhro (won the 2001 Caulfield Guineas brilliantly), which is by Octagonal, and Hawkes trained both of them for Woodlands Stud and Crown Lodge with Snowden his able deputy.

So You Think is a lightly tried colt but he already is touted as a Derby winner in waiting that has plenty of G1 victories ahead of him until a stud career beckons.

This exciting type is trained by Bart Cummings and raced by Dato Tan Chin Nam and once again carries the instantly recognizable black and white chess board pattern silks with yellow sleeves and a black and white checked cap.

The colt has won two of his three starts and was beaten a lip the other time and the rap on him is enormous, with comparisons already that he is the best three-year-old Cummings has had since you guessed it, Saintly.

Gai Waterhouse prepares the very impressive and long bodied colt Manhattan Rain, which is quite capable of knocking off Denman and So You Think, and he is yet another already incredibly valuable stud proposition with sublime bloodlines.

I am sure the great trainer Jack Denham will end up with another good three-year-old sooner rather than later, as he keeps developing top horses and is a must include whenever he lines one up at G1.

If history repeats even half as good as the 1995-1996 season then thoroughbred racing is in for another platinum period and names like Denman, So You Think and Manhattan Rain will all figure prominently on the track and at stud.

Do not miss the 2009 Caulfield Guineas, as you may be looking at the start of a golden era of greatness happening all over again.