The 58.5kg looks difficult on paper and weight is always critical over 3200m at this level. It was 1975 when Think Big carried the same weight to win, but in those days the minimum weight was something like 47kg.
The lightest carried this time will be the 51.5kg impossible chance Unchain My Heart carries and the weight Jaoa Moreira rides well fancied Signoff at. There is a big difference.
Makybe Diva was able to carry 58kg to her third win in the race, equating to 60kg for a male horse. While she was a true champion there might not be too much difference in class between her and Admire Rakti.
Put simply, the Japanese horse will probably prove too strong and too classy. Behind him there are six or seven even runners, a bunch of which include a number of the Europeans.
The safest each-way bet is Melbourne-trained Fawkner. Last year's Caulfield Cup winner is a push-button horse, who, from his perfect mid-field barrier, will get a cosy trip and almost certainly be there at the 400m waiting to pounce. The slight question mark on Fawkner is his ability to run a strong 3200m.
And the same can be said of ex-New Zealander Lucia Valentina. She was outstanding in her luckless Caulfield Cup third, but that was definitely her race.
Unless she gets the sweetest trip of all time - and she may from an inside barrier - the last desperate 150m might find her out.
Johnny Murtagh's Mutual Regard is a horse on the rise and will have the benefit of outstanding staying rider Damien Oliver.
Zac Purton remembers the day he walked up to champion Australian jockey Darren Beadman at a Coffs Harbour race meeting and told him flat he was going to replace him at the top of the tree.
At the time Purton hadn't ridden his first winner and by his own admission: "couldn't ride to save myself". He was undersized, even for a jockey, had a bad attitude and the worst element of short man's disease - a shocking temper.
When Purton, still essentially a young man, leads this afternoon's Cup field out on the favourite Admire Rakti it will be with the knowledge he has achieved all those things he promised himself, and others, with one exception, which is every jockey's dream - riding the winner of a Melbourne Cup.
It might just be because Purton will be having his first attempt at the great race this afternoon, after all, he has achieved everything else he set his mind to.
Stunningly, in 2003, he spent half the season sidelined by a two-month suspension and a serious ankle injury and still won the overall Brisbane jockeys' premiership as an apprentice.
Four years later he took the giant step of going to ride in the world's toughest racing arena, Hong Kong, a brash move for someone so young and someone who really was not a big name in his home country.
When the Hong Kong season wound up in the first week of July this year, Purton had ended the remarkable Douglas Whyte's 13-year reign at the head of the riding premiership.
Everything has fallen into place for the young man who was always in a hurry and who knew instinctively that if you don't aim for the top of the mountain you ain't going to get there.
He is married to Nicole, daughter of outstanding jockey Jim Cassidy, and the pair had their first-born exactly one month ago.
Purton rode briefly in Japan, when the Hong Kong season ended and met Admire Rakti's trainer Tomoyuki Umeda, who asked him to ride the horse in the Cups.
Most thought Caulfield would not suit the horse and he would be better suited at Flemington but, perhaps typically, Purton was confident.
"I knew any horse that could finish a close fourth in a Japan Cup was good enough for a Caulfield Cup, despite the track." So it proved and Admire Rakti stormed down the outside to sweep past Rising Romance.
Everything else will pale into insignificance if Purton salutes the crowd with his whip passing the winning post just after 5.00pm today.
Even Darren Beadman.
Dillon's selections
1: Admire Rakti.
2: Fawkner.
3: Protectionist.
4: My Ambivalent.
Best each-way: Fawkner.
Best at odds: Mutual Regard, Willing Foe.
