Spring racing / Steve Mcghee / 12 October 2009 / Leave a comment Bet Now

The last G1 of the Melbourne Cup week and this handicap mile is often a great get out betting race for bettors, as big odds have been the norm in this race this century.

The track at Flemington is usually showing signs of tiredness by the fourth and last day of the week, so the Emirates always provides an exciting contest and the field simply fans out in the home straight so you do not know where to look.

Lightweights have dominated this race for almost all of this century.

This handicap mile is the last G1 of the Melbourne Cup week at Flemington and more often than not throws up a big dividend result that can pay for the whole week but also cover your bookings for the next year too.

The $1 million quality mile comes on a Flemington track that has endured almost four full days or racing, so wear tear is rife plus any rain about and there will be faster lanes in places.

A weather watch is important but also scout for lanes appearing on the third day, which is Oaks Day, as you know the track cannot improve after being trampled on by so many horses throughout an incredibly busy Melbourne Cup week.

If there is one race at Flemington, where the field can split or fan across the vast width of the track that is not a straight course event, then it is the Emirates mile once they come around the home turn.

If you take out that the super sprinter and now good sire Testa Rossa carried a mammoth 59kg to win in 2000 on sheer class then the Emirates is definitely a race for the lower weighted runners.

Strangely for such a pressure contest most times this race sees an awful lot of sprinters or suspect milers on the honour roll in both the win and place positions.

Barrier draws are not important for this race and in fact, if you logically assume the track is tired by the last day of the carnival then wider gates and scouting out deeper near the home turn and certainly in the home straight should be an advantage.

Also remember that if a strip closer in should prove helpful then the riders of backrunners will have options ahead turning for home to steer inwards too, as this is one race when getting blocked is almost impossible and often drafting behind a main rival until as late as possible before being drawn out into the clear is a tactic applied by several.

Price is irrelevant in the race this century with some monster dividends of late and horses winning with form that you would need an electron microscope to actually find, so you can be very brave here.

If you had a dollar a win on the last five winners you would have spent five dollars and collected just over $190 and a pesky two of the winners only paid $6 odd, so the profit could have been Enron-like although that was fake and this is for real.

Big dividends often fill the placings too, so place bettors and quinella / trifecta takers can snare a big return several ways from the race and especially if they can find an anchor to work around.

The pattern of this race is untraceable too, as leaders can kick clear in blistering time or longshots swamp down the outer in sedate time or riders cut the corner then angle out more towards the middle at decent odds.

The two mares to win the race this century were both four-year-olds, namely Sky Cuddle (2004) and Divine Madonna (2006).

The track record for the mile at Flemington was set in this race in 2002, when Scenic Peak scored in 1:33.49.

A lot of horses are set just for this rich carnival closer and the lighter weight they can get in with the better but sometimes a class act appears and gaps them, as All Silent did last year.

After his amazing fresh up win on October 3 in the G2 Gilgai (1200m) under 58kg this spring we could well see the first back-to-back winner of the Emirates since Seascay, which scored for firstly David and then his late brother, Peter Hayes, in 1994-1995.

The Hayes family won the race five times in a row between 1992-1996, which is an incredible statistic, but they have not scored since though David has been there and done that before, so beware anything he puts in the race.

Damien Oliver has never won the Emirates, which is an anomaly in itself, and but for a suspension last year he would have ridden All Silent.

Bettors need to see if All Silent, which is unbeaten in three starts at Flemington and currently has the trifecta of a G1, G2 and G3 win on the track, lines up in this or the G1 Patinack Farm Classic (1200m) at WFA.

Either way his unbeaten course record will go on the line in either a straight six or at the mile.

You can almost hear The Seekers singing 'The Carnival Is Over', when the Emirates has been run and won because that 1965 release of the best selling song sums up that another Melbourne Cup week is coming to a close.

In 1965 Heroic Stone won the equivalent of what is now called the Emirates (the George Adams Handicap) and was ridden for trainer Tommy Hughes by Mick Mallyon, with the intriguing thing that this horse finished third in the race the following year to the top filly Storm Queen and then won it for a second time in 1967 but Harry White rode this time.

All Silent beat Sea Battle in the Emirates last year and if the latter can overcome an early spring setback, this pair can repeat their performances in this race in consecutive years and who knows, maybe come back for a third shot at it in 2010 like Heroic Stone.