Racing: Weather key to running in Cup

Just as the weather will probably decide whether Makybe Diva runs in the Melbourne Cup, so it will be for Xcellent.

The difference is that the champion Australian mare won't start on a firm track, while the New Zealand star Xcellent wants it that way.

It means a week of guessing and Xcellent's trainer, Mike Moroney, thinks even the weather men don't know what is going to happen.

"What is happening now is that the lows are swirling around and not really moving on and it's a matter of just where they dump their rain," he said at his Flemington stables in drizzling rain yesterday morning.

He knows a bit about Melbourne weather. An hour later it was pouring at Flemington and a few kilometres away in central Melbourne it was clear.

Xcellent doesn't like it wet. His two failures were in the AJC Derby on a heavy track in March and on Saturday on a slow track in the Cox Plate at Moonee Valley.

Moroney said the long-range forecast indicates clear weather for the 48 hours leading into Tuesday's Melbourne Cup, but whether that eventuates is in the laps of the gods.

"If the track got to slow or worse, we would have to really consider scratching him, especially on the evidence of what we've seen. If the weather went against us, we would have to make a decision on the morning of the race."

He said Flemington could cope with a fair amount of rain.

Moroney remains confident about the horse's chances in the Cup, despite his ninth in the Cox Plate.

"It hasn't blunted my enthusiasm for the horse - I know what he has got and what he is capable of."

He doesn't doubt Xcellent's ability to get the 3200m Cup distance, despite it being his first try. He thinks the way the horse finished to win the New Zealand Derby last Boxing Day when starting after a long break was the work of a top class stayer.

But he concedes the horse's lack of experience could count against him on Tuesday.

"He did show a lack of ringcraft coming around the home corner in the Cox Plate, but he'll get better - there is nothing like racing in the best class for a horse to start picking those sorts of things up."

Horses don't get many chances of running in Melbourne Cups - and Xcellent certainly won't get another one with only 54kg on his back.

Jockey Michael Coleman has copped a bagging in some quarters for his ride in the Cox Plate, but Moroney doesn't have any problem with his tactics at the crucial stage 900m from home.

"They weren't going that quick and he just came out to have a little look before he made a run and God's Own went straight under his neck and pushed him out.

"Then the mare [Makybe Diva] saw him coming and she went too and he just got shunted off the track.

"Mike said he was travelling as well as Makybe Diva at the 600m and they were the only two going easily, but at the 400m he had to ask the horse to really go, they started climbing and turning and he said he just couldn't handle it in the ground."

If they had followed the mare, Coleman thought they could have finished in the first four - but not ahead of Makybe Diva.

"I know that Mike is being a bit tough on himself, but we were there to win and that is how he rode him.

"Flemington is going to be totally different for him ... we have the right guy on, he knows the horse and he's a good rider of stayers."

One plus for the Moroney camp is that the intense media pressure has dissipated, with Xcellent blowing out to A$26 in Cup odds.

"It was hectic last week, but that is par for the course. Once the field comes out on Saturday night it will come back on, but with not quite as much spotlight on him."

That will be on Makybe Diva.

Xcellent cantered quietly at Flemington yesterday. Moroney said the horse's main pre-Cup gallop will be on Saturday, and if he's not happy with the area off the Flemington course proper that he is allocated, he will take Xcellent to Moonee Valley or Werribee instead.

* Paul Jenkins doesn't want to start Auckland Cup winner Bazelle in the LKS Mackinnon Stakes on Saturday just three days ahead of the Melbourne Cup, but the mare's condition will decide the issue for him.

Bazelle is safely in the Melbourne Cup field after third declarations. The connections of 37 horses paid up and Bazelle was 18th in order of entry for a 24-horse field.

Jenkins said if he found her to be "above herself" in condition later this week, she would run in the Mackinnon to have her at peak for the Cup. She is paying as much as $67 to win the Cup.

- NZPA