
Issue No 75		27 October 2000

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Sport

Sunline To Hang Rivals Out To Dry

By Joe McLoughlin

Anyone with a hankering for horse will be hanging out for tomorrow's weight-for-age championship on Moonee Valley's Strathayr surface.

Forget your Doncasters and your Melbourne Cups, exciting as they are, this is the real McCoy, the fair-dinkum decider of the best horseflesh in Australasia. Sure the weight-for-age scale has its critics but it remains the fairest test of merit racing has to offer.

And tomorrow's showdown is set to be a classic. Kiwi raider Sunline and Victorian favourite Sky Heights are entitled to dominate the market and, very likely, the race but the intriguing thing about this Cox Plate is the depth of performers around them.

All it will take is one stumble or a jockey to pull the wrong rein on one of the favourites and well-credentialled athletes like Tie The Knot, The Message, Testa Rossa, Shogun Lodge and Diatribe will come right into the reckoning.

Moonee Valley can be a graveyard for punters. Track form is more important than at most other venues but, just when you least expect it, even that can go out the window, so much so that some professionals simply bypass the venue in their search for a dollar.

But the great thing about the Valley is the ability of the track to absorb moisture. If this event was being held anywhere else, after the big wet that seems to have been rolling through Victoria for the last six months, it would be dead as a spectacle already.

Moonee Valley, though, will provide going good enough to preserve the essence of the contest.

Bearing that in mind, those with a punter's instinct, might still be considering a wager.

Most will look at Beat The Fade and Fubu but only fleetingly, perhaps pausing to wonder how on earth a couple of Toyota sedans managed to make it into a showroom packed with Ferraris.

Weight, just 48.5, and a proven liking for soft and dead tracks will have some reassessing Queenslander, Show A Heart, especially those with multiples in mind.

The odds, 50s and 33s, for Referral and Oliver Twist pretty much put them in their places. Skoozi Pleased in lead-up efforts but might find this a bit rich, although last weekend's Caulfield Cup was a timely reminder about the JA Cassidy factor.

Then it's on to the blue riband end of the field although you would be entitled to wonder whether the weight-for-age scale, track conditions and/or Moonee Valley, itself, are going to advantage Tie The Knot, Diatribe, Shogun Lodge or Testa Rossa.

On that sort of thinking, we're left with three runners - the two favourites and dark horse The Message, coming off back-to-back Group wins at Hastings, New Zealand. It's not bad form but still leaves a significant class question mark dangling over his head.

Two weeks ago, the Cox Plate looked a simple equation - if Fairway ran he could bother Sunline out of it front and, if not, the wonder-mare had her hoof in the till.

Fairway's out but Sky Heights has overcome a miserable Melbourne preparation to rediscover his best and the New Zealander has drawn the visitor's alley of 13 - not as damaging to her as some others, perhaps, but a consideration nonetheless.

You can turn this race upside down, shake it and examine its entrails but you will struggle to go past Sunline, just as plenty of Australia's best have over the past three seasons.

If somehow, she blew to better than 2s you would be entitled to make up some seriously exaggerated stories and run them by the bank manager but at 6/4, and sliding, the prudent might remember Dane Ripper and keep their hands in their pockets.

Enjoy the spectacle because only another deluge is going to prevent it being one of the year's great sporting events.

NB: If someone, a partner for example, forces you to spend the housekeeping on the Cox Plate you might extract some value by trying trifectas based on Sunline beating Sky Heights with The Message, Shogun Lodge, Skoozi Please, Diatribe and Show A Heart all tossed in to fill the minor placing - then again, you might not!

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Issue 75 contents

Interview: Civilized Capital
The FNV's Harrie Lindelauff explains to Peter Lewis how a friendly government and moderate employers make for a different sort of workplace in Holland.

Politics: Where Too Much Politics Is Barely Enough
With daily newspapers providing polling and analysis, television, cable, radio and Internet providing 24 hour coverage over a year long campaign -- there's more than enough politics for even the most voracious American political junkie reports Michael Gadiel.

International: US Cleaners on Hunger Strike
A number of US cleaners have this week gone on a hunger strike to back a union campaign for higher wages.

Economics: The Pass The Risk Trick
Derivatives, often seen as the currency of casino capitalism, are the fastest growing, largest and potentially most volatile aspect of capitalist economies. Economist Dick Brian sees behind this image an even deeper danger.

Health: Depressing Workplaces
New technologies and the impact of globalisation have sparked more stress and bouts of depression for workers, while causing a growing burden for social security systems, a new ILO report says.

Unions: Costello's Con
The low paid are bearing the brunt of the GST with inflation at a 10 year high argues the ACTU's Greg Combet.

Satire: Bush campaign an in-joke, admit advisors
TEXAS, Thursday: Following Bush's disastrous performance in the first Presidential debate it has been revealed that his bid for president is actually the result of a in-joke about how stupid the American people are.

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