Racing: Fame Game white-hot on paper

Red Cadeaux has remarkably been three times runner-up in the Melbourne Cup. Photo / Getty Images

Many factors contribute to a horse winning a race.

But the one inescapable fact is that races are won by the horse that runs the fastest time between Point A and Point B.

Which is why bookmakers worldwide avoid at all costs looking up the home record of white hot Melbourne Cup favourite, Japan's Fame Game.

The fastest 3200m Melbourne Cup times are the 3.16.3 Kingston Rule clocked in 1990, 3.16.97 Media Puzzle sizzled over in 2002 and Protectionist's 3.17.71 a year ago.

When Fame Game finished a close second in the $3.2 million Tenno Sho in Tokyo on May 3 in his last start before arriving in Melbourne he ran the 3200m in 3.14.7.

He was beaten a bare neck and he should have won, flashing home from the back of the field.

If he runs anything like that same time tomorrow he is unbeatable. The one factor that can bring him undone is bad luck as a back runner, which just about every bookmaker in the world will be hoping for.

Fame Game is currently $3.20 favourite and the collective worldwide liability - impossible to accurately calculate - is mind boggling. One certainty is bookmakers won't be buying new cars in the next 12 months if he wins.

With 24 runners, Melbourne Cup favourites invariably pay well. When Makybe Diva won her third Melbourne Cup a decade ago - and she looked a good thing despite a massive weight on her back - she paid in excess of $5. The $3.20 on offer for Fame Game indicates the confidence bookmakers have in his chances.

But being a back runner gives the bookies some hope, however slight.

Fame Game came from last on the home bend to finish a close sixth in the Caulfield on a tight circuit that did not suit him. Stewards queried the Zac Purton ride and reprimanded the Hong Kong-based Australian.

Two factors can change this time. Flemington is one of the world's biggest and roomiest racetracks, unlike Caulfield, and there is ample time to move forward from the 900m. Horses are flat out at the 200m and the Cup is always won by the strongest horse inside that last distance. That is a department Fame Game excels in.

The second favourite, at $9, is the Caulfield Cup runner-up Trip To Paris, one of two English trainer Ed Dunlop will saddle. But the one Dunlop would love to win the race with is his other horse Red Cadeaux, a remarkable 10-year-old who has been second three times in this race.

Chris Waller has the $11 third favourite in Preferment and on $13 is Max Dynamite.

Ed Dunlop rates the Melbourne Cup field as the strongest he has come up against.

Dunlop's crowd favourite Red Cadeaux is back for the fifth year in a row and has been joined by stablemate Trip To Paris, a five-year-old on his first journey outside England.

Dunlop was impressed with Trip To Paris's second to Mongolian Khan in the Caulfield Cup and believes he has a chance tomorrow.

"There are a lot of very good horses in this race," Dunlop said yesterday.

"I think it is the best Melbourne Cup I've competed in. There are a lot of horses I think can win, locals and the internationals." Dunlop won't predict that 2015 will be the year Red Cadeaux finally goes one better in the Cup nor will he say if it will be the horse's final race.

"I don't know. I've said this is it about four times, so we'll wait and see what happens on Tuesday."

Red Cadeaux has made the long trip out to Australia six times. Earlier this year he came to Sydney where he ran second to Criterion in the A$4 million Queen Elizabeth Stakes.

"He seems to become a different horse around here," he said.

Should Red Cadeaux run second for the fourth time, Dunlop said he would still be very proud.

Meanwhile, jockey Tommy Berry is confident Trip To Paris can deliver him and Dunlop a first Melbourne Cup win.

- Additional reporting AAP