Racing: Xcellent first to make move, 900m from home

MELBOURNE - Carrying the hopes of New Zealand in Australasia's biggest weight-for-age race, the A$3 million Cox Plate at Moonee Valley, Xcellent finished ninth, many lengths behind the brilliant mare Makybe Diva.

In a race determined by tactics and Makybe Diva's exceptional qualities, Xcellent's jockey Michael Coleman was the first to make a move, from the back of the field, 900m from home.

But others, including Glen Boss on Makybe Diva, saw him coming and flushed him out as much as 10 wide.

It was a spectacular sight - that many horses in a line charging for the home turn. However, the hopes of Xcellent's owners, who were decked out in Panama hats for the occasion, were about to be floored.

Xcellent, on the outside, began to struggle in the slow track conditions, while Makybe Diva revelled in it, accelerating ahead of the pack once into the straight to roars of delight from the 33,000 crowd, many of them wearing Makybe Diva masks.

There was criticism from trainer Colin Alderson about horses such as Xcellent making their runs ahead of "the best two-miler in the world" and so playing into the hands of Boss.

But Coleman was damned if he did and damned if he didn't. Crucial in his decision to make the first move was the slow pace at the mid-race stage.

The sectional time from the 1400m to the 1200m was a staggeringly slow 13.70 seconds.

"If we had the race over again, we probably would have followed the mare and had a go at them," Xcellent's trainer Mike Moroney said. "Having said that Mike [Coleman] was in a position where they had gone so slow, it was going to be very, very hard for backmarkers."

Had they waited for Makybe Diva to make her run, Moroney thinks Xcellent would have run in the first five, but not beaten Makybe Diva.

"But we were there to win, so we had a crack at it."

Moroney and Coleman agreed the slow track was against Xcellent.

Coleman: "He came to the outside and travelled into it really nicely. He was still going well at the 600 mark but climbing the hill at the 400 he started to struggle and coming around the corner he just couldn't foot it with the great mare."

Until the pressure went on, Xcellent had travelled well in the going, he said, but lost his footing around the turn.

Moroney said he thought Xcellent coped with the attention from a big crowd well and had eaten up his feed after the race.

Moroney is keen to press on for the Melbourne Cup.

"We think Flemington will suit him a lot better, and as long as we are happy with him this week we will soldier on."

The 3200m staying test should suit him too, he said.

"We have always thought of him as a staying horse."

- NZPA