But while that creates a tricky puzzle for punters tomorrow’s great race got even harder to predict when Via Sistina unseated James McDonald on trackwork at The Valley and proceeded to gallop three laps of the track.
It was caused by her getting tangled up in a bandage that had come loose on her leg and while both McDonald and the mare were unhurt, reactions ranged from she almost certainly won’t run, to maybe she will to now, three days later she is definitely starting.
That enormously affected the market with Via Sistina drifting soon after her accident but her quote, which got as long as $6, has tightened every day to the point where she was $4.20 last night and closing in on favouritism as Prognosis, who is a serious weight-for-age galloper, drifts.
Champion trainer Chris Waller has not left a stone unturned in his mission to make sure Via Sistina is right to run tomorrow.
His plan to run took another giant leap forward yesterday morning when Via Sistina returned to The Valley for a light canter, getting the all-clear from Waller and her regular rider Chris Harwood.
The stable flew Harwood down from Sydney to take the sit on Via Sistina for the morning.
Waller said the trip from Flemington to The Valley was more about the mental side of things than the physical.
“She has come through it remarkably well. When something goes wrong, you need to work on what you can do to counteract it,” reported Racing.com.
“Obviously, it’s less work because she’s done plenty of work on Tuesday morning. Just watching her body language: She was at the beach, Wednesday morning, and this morning we brought her to Moonee Valley just for a confidence session.
“From all different aspects, from coming on the truck, walking around the stalls, walking around the parade ring, going out on the track, going back down past where the incident happened on Tuesday, cantering past, and then did a full lap of the track at a sedate canter. She pulled up well and didn’t turn a hair.
“It puts us in a good position for Saturday. [It was] all about mental wellness and making sure she is happy, confident.”
Waller said he “wanted to do everything we possibly could” to make sure Via Sistina was at her peak come Saturday.
Harwood said: “It might have brought her on, livened her up a bit.
“She was very sharp around there today, cornered well. I couldn’t fault her. In all honesty, it would be an injustice not to run her.”
Add her antics to the fact the form around Prognosis and Docklands is still a mystery to many Australian punters as to just how the three-year-olds Broadsiding and Evaporate will measure up and this Cox Plate is creating plenty of head-scratching.
Which makes it all the stranger that Mr Brightside, who ran Romantic Warrior to a nose last year is rated an $8.50 chance or that likely leader and Queen of the Turf in Australia in Pride Of Jenni is still only third favourite.
As confused as this Cox Plate story is, it will be worth tuning in just as 7pm tomorrow night to see how it all ends.
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.
