Sydney is making scary inroads on the Melbourne Cup week carnival.
Suddenly, New South Wales is fast becoming the preferred destination for international trainers, and it is little wonder considering their superior prizemoney and less stringent vet checks.
There were four overseas runners in the $10 million Golden Eagle at Rosehill (1500m) on Saturday, and two of them – Lake Forrest and Lazzat – were first and second past the post.
Cieren Fallon celebrates on Lake Forest in the Golden Eagle.Credit: Getty Images
In comparison, the Melbourne Cup has been whittled back to four internationals this Tuesday, not counting the three Kiwis – a long way from the 11 imports that jumped in 2019.
That number would have been five had Racing Victoria’s strict racing protocols, which include compulsory CT leg scans, not ruled out Aidan O’Brien’s Jan Brueghel last week because it was deemed “heightened risk of injury” if it ran.
It was a finding that O’Brien hotly disputed while he was winning group 1 races at that other big racing carnival at this time of year - the Breeders Cup at Del Mar in Southern California.
Therein lies the dilemma – are we killing international interest in our Cup through kindness?
It is going to take a shift in values. By making the vet checks so intense, to eliminate the risk of another catastrophic death, we might have to revert to type: It is the race that stops a nation, but no longer captures the attention of the world.
It used to be that you have to be in it to win it. Now it seems you have to be wealthy to be in it to win it.
There are 11 rehomed internationals in Tuesday’s Melbourne Cup field, including race favourite Buckaroo, and each of them will have been bought and sent to Australia at a significant........