Spring racing / Steve Mcghee / 19 October 2009 / Leave a comment Bet Now

This is the fourth G1 held on Derby Day, the opening day of Melbourne Cup week, and it is rapidly becoming a barometer of future sprinting prowess.

Since the race was moved to a Derby Day date and upgraded to G1 status for three-year-olds at set weights, it has in just three short runnings proved another inspired choice for Flemington over Melbourne Cup week.

The G1 $500,000 Coolmore Stud Stakes (1200m) sees a straight track sprint to decide spring superiority and is a serious stallion and stud making event for both colt and filly in its now more potent raceday placement.

It is all about the stayers on days two and three of Melbourne Cup week, with the famous Flemington two-miler on the second day and the Crown Oaks (2500m) for fillies on the third day.

The first day is called Derby Day, which tells you the G1 staying feature Victoria Derby (2500m) is the highlight but there are three other G1 races on that wonderful card too.

The sprinters, young and old, are catered for specifically on days one and four plus there is ample opportunity for a lesser light on the middle days of the carnival to compete for a good purse up the straight course.

The incredibly durable filly Gold Edition won the first G1 Coolmore Stud Stakes in 2006 (then called the Ascot Vale) and the cheer of 'Queenslander' was heard from this point on.

Gold Edition gapped them by four lengths and was in a league of her own versus this lot plus she was staggeringly having her seventeenth start at the time and recording her eighth win and it was just the spring.

She would race a further twenty times and record nine more wins.

She would beat a lightly tried but at the time promising Splashed from the Danny O'Brien stable and the David Hayes trained Churchill Downs was third, which went with his same distant placing the previous season in the G1 Golden Slipper as a juvenile behind the dominant winner Miss Finland.

Future G1 winners or placegetters in Danleigh (finished fifth) at home and Green Birdie (finished fourth) in Hong Kong would come out of the Gold Edition romp.

Weekend Hussler would win the 2007 Coolmore Stud Stakes easily and go on to attain a fleeting rating as top ranked three-year-old and sprinter-miler on the world stage.

It was the fifth win in a row for Weekend Hussler, when he captured the Coolmore Stud Stakes and he would go on to score another seven times.

The gelding was backed up one week after his Coolmore Stud Stakes slaughter and failed under pressure in the G1 Emirates (1600m) versus all comers under handicap conditions.

Bel Mer finished a game second for trainer Mick Price and rider Craig Newitt to Weekend Hussler and a future gobetrotter called Scenic Blast finished third.

Scenic Blast would the next season win the G1 Lightning (1000m) and G1 Newmarket (1200m) at Flemington and be unlucky not to get the Melbourne sprint Triple Crown, as in between he was a hampered fifth in the G1 Oakleigh Plate (1100m).

He would then to go to Royal Ascot and outmuscle his opposition in the G1 Kings Stand (1000m) fresh up causing European mouths to become agog and lips droop downward in dismay that another 'downunder sprinter' had done the business on their big day.

The fan army and connections of Scenic Blast, who travelled half way around the world to fulfill a dream and prove a point, each did their part for Tourism Australia for no cost at all by asking the locals in England as often as possible "where the bloody hell were you", at the post of course.

Brad Rawiller rode Weekend Hussler and his brother Nash rode the Coolmore Stud Stakes winner last year in Northern Meteor, which was trained by Gai Waterhouse and she rated the horse highly before it went to stud.

Can we see a Rawiller salute the judge again in 2009?

Northern Meteor beat a game Fist Of Fury trained by John O'Shea and the David Hayes trained All American was third.

Fist Of Fury has been luckless almost ever since and All American has also been unlucky several times but he has also been inexplicably bad at times.

All American was unlucky at his last start in the G1 Toorak (1600m), when striking traffic and slamming doors several times from the home turn, but trouble does seem to find him and regularly.

He has raced ten times since that Coolmore Stud Stakes placing for no wins and just a single placing, so his backers have long since run out of money to put on him.

Brad Rawiller rode an inspired race to win the 2009 G1 Caulfield Cup recently, so is on cloud nine at the moment, and he and brother Nash do seem to fire over the spring.

Look for Caulfield trainer Peter Moody to line up a quality colt and filly in the Coolmore Stud Stakes this year in Tickets (he can emboss those stallion credentials with a win here) and Avenue (she is a real flying filly that can become a millionaire mum in the future with success here).

Peter Snowden has earmarked this race for the lightly tried but deliberately freshened up Demerit, so the race should be a ripper this year.

Remember the straight track sprinting in Melbourne is superb practice for future forays back to the fatherland to show off the sprinting production line that is now part and parcel of Australian thoroughbred racing.