KEY POINTS:
Locked out of a racecourse. Imagine.
Some of us wish we had been at times.
But that's the reality of Derby Day at Flemington this afternoon.
If you didn't have a ticket for Flemington by 12.30pm yesterday, you weren't going to the races today.
The Victoria Racing Club
- most say sensibly - declared a crowd cap of 120,000 after pandemonium because of a huge crowd on Derby Day last year. The pre-sold tickets were gone halfway through yesterday.
No one can remember the last time racecourse gates were closed.
With every one of 10 races a group event and A$4.9 million ($5.9 million) on the line, Derby Day has long been admired as one of the world's great racedays.
The A$1 million Victoria Derby is not everyone's ideal race, but it is still fascinating and three good sorts in Marching, Villain and Kibbutz go head to head today to prove they can beat the odds and run 2500m on one of the world's most unforgiving, brutal racetracks at a time when they are just leaving their 2-year-old year behind.
There is nowhere to hide in this race and in Villain's favour is the fact he has shown he can find the line strongly and that he is still improving.
It will cap off local trainer Danny O'Brien's spring if Villain wins.
His wife produced a baby at the start of the carnival, provided the A$2.5 million Caulfield Cup quinella result then had his appendix removed.
That's a strange trifecta and O'Brien, one of racing's nice guys, will be chuffed to make it a quadrella result.
Marching is the solidly-backed Derby favourite after his dominant Moonee Valley win last week.
Victory would mean a whole lot to his trainer John Hawkes, one of Australia's greatest ever.
Hawkes severs his ties with Marching's owner Crown Lodge at the end of the spring and this would see out a magnificent partnership in the right style.
"A month ago I realised this [Marching] was going to be our last chance to win a group one for Crown Lodge," Hawkes said.
Under Damien Oliver, Marching was strong at the end of the AAMI Vase last week, but the Derby is a different type of race.
The weather is a concern - Marching is a duffer on wet tracks.
Melbourne's weather, generally predictable, was meant to be showers yesterday. They hadn't arrived by late afternoon, but if they develop overnight and continue today, as predicted, Marching might have a problem.
Weekend Hussler is starting to set himself up as Australia's best racehorse and he will go one leg closer to proving it if he wins today's A$500,000 Coolmore Stud Stakes.
He simply played with the opposition to win the Caulfield Guineas and, if anything, the expansive Flemington track will suit him better.
Haradsun looks the A$755,000 Mackinnon Stakes winner, particularly after trainer Colin Little elected not to run Cox Plate winner El Segundo.
