Derby Day on Saturday provided some magical racing on a near perfect surface and yesterday, Melbourne basked in the sort of 30C day you see in tourist commercials.
That commercial was set to end last night.
Rain was forecast for Sunday night and plenty more today and the temperate predicted to plummet to 15C – hardly helpful track-drying weather.
That has Flemington track manager Liam O’Keeffe being realistic about what the next 24 hours could bring.
“If we get all the rain they are predicting then it [the track] could get into the heavy range,” O’Keeffe said.
“But if it is not as bad then we might get away with a slow track.”
And, of course, if the forecasters are completely wrong then Flemington could present perfectly tomorrow.
The difference between a Good 4, Slow or worst-case-scenario Heavy track is enormous, especially over the 3200m of the Cup.
Which means THE question of the racing year feels impossible to answer at the moment.
For all the resurgence of New Zealand racing and the enormous hype and undoubted success of The Everest, the Melbourne Cup stands alone as the one race everybody wants to be the winner of.
Tell anybody you work in racing, whether on a plane, at the gym or in a cafe, and every October-ish the question starts: “Who do you like in the Melbourne Cup?”
The usual answer is, we will know more when the field comes out the Saturday of the race, when we see the barrier draws ... blah, blah, blah.
Which is a polite way of saying I have no idea. Yet.
This year that “yet” could extend all the way into tomorrow’s meeting because nothing will change track conditions as much as rain on the day, especially once the meeting has started and the horses in other races start chopping up the ground.
If that happens, some horses simply won’t enjoy the conditions and will underperform.
The wetter the track, the tougher the 3200m becomes and that means other horses won’t have the stamina for the slog, while a wet track gets cut up on the inside by the earlier races, which means good barriers can become bad and vice versa.
So how much rain falls in Melbourne between when you read this and 5pm (NZT) tomorrow night could determine whose name gets inscribed on racing’s Holy Grail straight after the race.
Some of the more favoured runners in tomorrow’s Cup, such as Caulfield Cup winner Half Yours and French visitor Presage Nocturne, would appear to be unworried by the prospect of a wet track.
But one-time favourite Al Riffa, who is the best-performed horse in the Cup, has little real wet-track form and his already imposing 59kg handicap could feel like a tonne of bricks if the Cup becomes a slogfest.
So we watch the heavens and wait, or maybe more accurately: update whatever weather app you have on your phone and wait.
Waiting is not fun. There is no adrenaline rush in waiting.
When people ask you who is going to win the Melbourne Cup, “just wait” is not an answer than satisfies them.
But as of right now, probably half the horses in this Melbourne Cup can win and the other half probably can’t.
But which horses are in the can-win group and who is demoted to the can’t-wins could change once the Weather Gods have finished with Flemington.
So, to answer your question: just wait.
Lexus Melbourne Cup
What: Australia’s most famous horse race.
Where: Flemington, Melbourne
When: Tuesday, 5pm (NZT)
Money: A$10 million total stake
Distance: 3200m
Who: 24 elite class staying horses from around the world.
Michael Guerin wrote his first nationally published racing articles while still in school and started writing about horse racing and the gambling industry for the Herald as a 20-year-old in 1990. He became the Herald’s Racing Editor in 1995 and covers the world’s biggest horse racing carnivals.
