From all form angles, last year's winner appears well placed to notch Cup double
You go through the form for today's A$5.5 million Melbourne Cup 15 times and for at least 13 of them you come back to one horse - Viewed.
Even if you divorce the Bart Cummings factor - and that's nearly impossible - Viewed ticks all the boxes.
He's proven at
3200m - he won last year's Cup.
He's in absolute top form having won the Caulfield Cup two starts back.
His third placing in Saturday's Mackinnon was a blinder - he finished last in it 12 months ago before winning the Cup.
And even though topweight is not the place you want to be in a Melbourne Cup, with 58kg he actually looks as though he's light.
And Brad Rawiller is probably Australia's most under-rated jockey.
Compare those points with some of the others.
Alcopop for example.
To win he has to carry a jockey who had not stepped on to Flemington racetrack until late Sunday.
Recently retired former New Zealand jockey Greg Childs took Alcopop's rider Dom Tourneur around the vast expanse of Flemington on foot on Sunday.
Childs was happy to give up his weekend time to help the South Australian because he knew he needed it.
"I rode in quite a few Melbourne Cups," said Childs yesterday.
"I never rode the favourite, but I was on a couple of well-fancied runners and you feel the pressure.
"When you go out on to the track on a fancied Cup runner you're all alone.
"There's 100,000 staring down at you and you feel it.
"Dom's on the [equal] favourite and he's never ridden Flemington before.
"That's not a comfortable place to be."
Is it just possible that this eclectic, unlikely bunch from the beauty of Victor Harbour in South Australia that practically no one knew of a year ago, could actually tear off Australia's most prized trophy?
If this was just another race you'd probably be saying absolutely because Alcopop has the right form on the board and the right weight - 52.5kg.
The 5.5kg spread between him and Viewed is the width of the Grand Canyon at the end of a gruelling 3200m Melbourne Cup.
But this is not just another race.
It is the Melbourne Cup.
Group one racing in Australia is not the place for inexperience.
Melbourne Cups are not the place to be for a jockey with no experience of the track or of racing at this level.
If Dom Tourneur pulls it off the achievement will be staggering.
Guinness Book Of Records stuff.
Equivalent to a schoolboy team going to England and bringing back the Ashes.
This is your heart v common sense. And that split seems even - money has continued to pour in for Alcopop.
There are a handful of other chances, among them New Zealand mare Daffodil, the 2007 Caulfield Cup winner Master O'Reilly and Shocking, who was made to look like a polo pony by Alcopop two starts back.
The best of the five Europeans could be Mourilyan, owned by a Chechen, trained by a South African in Dubai and England and who has raced in almost half of the world's countries that conduct horse racing.
But you keep coming back to the Viewed v Alcopop scenario.
It always seems appropriate that Bart Cummings has the last say.
When asked on Saturday what his reaction was to Viewed's eyecatching third in the Mackinnon Stakes, he said: "Hmmm, that'll make him nice and relaxed for Tuesday."
He could have been talking about himself. Had he just seen evidence that he'd got it right for the 13th time on the first Tuesday in November?
Or will he have to swap the Grange Hermitage for Alcopop?
DILLON'S CUP TIPS
1. Viewed
2. Master O'Reilly
3. Alcopop
4. Daffodil
5. Shocking
6. Mourilyan
