KEY POINTS:
How can they beat Princess Coup in the Cox Plate?
You never get confident about winning a group one Australian race, especially if you're a New Zealander, but the signs are so good the $4 available in Australia looks inviting.
You can even get $3.80 about Saturday's dashing $2 million Kelt Capital Stakes winner on the New Zealand TAB.
Princess Coup is equal Cox Plate favourite with Weekend Hussler in Australia, despite the champion's beaten performance in Saturday's Turnbull Stakes.
But that is all about bookmaker liability on the Hussler and has nothing to do with a realistic assessment of the beaten champ's chances.
"There should be another zero on the end of the Hussler's price," said one bookmaker yesterday.
"Unfortunately, our ledger is so one-sided we don't have the luxury of offering the odds we would like to."
Perhaps, but he's too good to count out after just one failure, even if it was a shocker.
If Weekend Hussler is out of play, as the bookies are predicting, and third favourite Samantha Miss is the only logical danger, then you get back to the opening statement: how can they beat Princess Coup?
Samantha Miss is a 3-year-old filly and they haven't won the Cox Plate in more than 30 years since Surround was successful.
Fillies in the spring are simply not equipped to handle the brutality that the Cox Plate becomes when the sprint goes on between the 750m and 650m.
They say Samantha Miss is different and she will be tough enough.
We'll see.
She'll need to be when Princess Coup unleashes her own form of brutality from the 600m, the sprint that put paid to the AJC Derby quinella pair of Red Ruler and Nom Du Jeu and Boundless, who should have won the AJC Oaks by a wide section of the spacious Randwick straight.
And that form is better than anything Australia has to offer right now, if you accept Weekend Hussler is out of play.
You'll wait an awful long time to get Mark Walker to show emotion or excitement going into a major race, but you can tell he can't wait to get Princess Coup to Melbourne.
This will not be a vintage Cox Plate.
Pompeii Ruler, probably the big spring improver, is a $7 shot ahead of Zipping at $11, Sirmione on $15 and Maldivian $21.
You have to wonder what a Sunline or a Northerly would have done to such a field.
* * *
Red Ruler has firmed to $15 from $26 for the Caulfield Cup.
Corey Brown has landed the ride at the 52.5kg.
You can make a case Brown is currently Australia's best jockey on form. He is now based in Sydney, but had plenty of experience in Melbourne as No 1 rider for Lee Freedman.
Nom Du Jeu is at $17 for the Caulfield Cup and $21 for the Melbourne Cup.
Red Ruler is $26 in the Melbourne Cup, in from $51.
