Nothing like a 3200m contest
It may not be the Melbourne Cup Odds, but it certainly provided a great spectacle when the Irish bred Kerdem slugged it out best to win the Queensland Cup on Saturday.
In a stirring duel, Kerdem eventually got the better of the tough performer Sky Biscuit to win the 3200m feature.
With third placed Rezone also in among the slug fest on a rain sodden Eagle Farm, it provided one of the better spectacles of the Queensland Winter Racing carnival.
Alas, 3200m races are becoming thinner on the ground as each season progresses, with authorities continuing to focus on shorter contests.
The Melbourne and Sydney Cups are now the only 3200m Group 1 events run in Australia each season. A few years ago there were five, but the Brisbane, Adelaide and Perth Cups have all been downgraded in recent times.
The Queensland Turf Club then gave the Brisbane Cup the indignity of a distance reduction (to 2400m) last year and the event has lost its gloss.
The Brisbane Cup has been a useful guide to the Melbourne Cup Odds, with the year of 2000 springing to mind, where Brew trailed home Yippyio in that race.
A few months later the pair were fighting out the finish of the Melbourne Cup.
Even though the horses fighting it out on Saturday’s Queensland Cup were hardly top class, the spectacle of a 3200m race is one of the best in racing.
But sadly they are becoming fewer and farther between.
Thank goodness we still have the Melbourne Cup to provide the highlight of each racing season.