CHIEF handicapper Greg Carpenter yesterday rated this spring's four-year-old group as the best of their age in the six years he has been assessing weights for the Caulfield and Melbourne cups, reports The Age.It says: Carpenter this morning announces the handicaps for the spring's major cups and while he noted there was good quality at the top end of entries, there were very few outstanding gallopers among the older horses. But it was a different story for the four-year-old bunch. ''The most exc
CHIEF handicapper Greg Carpenter yesterday rated this spring's four-year-old group as the best of their age in the six years he has been assessing weights for the Caulfield and Melbourne cups, reports The Age.
It says: Carpenter this morning announces the handicaps for the spring's major cups and while he noted there was good quality at the top end of entries, there were very few outstanding gallopers among the older horses. But it was a different story for the four-year-old bunch. ''The most exciting part of the line-up this year is the four-year-olds,'' he said. ''There is incredible strength and depth in that age group, and not just from the males.
''So You Think won the Cox Plate at just his fifth start and then you have the likes of AJC Derby winner Shoot Out and then the fillies Faint Perfume (VRC Oaks), Once Were Wild (AJC Oaks) and Dariana (Queensland Derby).''
In what could be a first for any owner, Lloyd Williams could potentially part-own the highest-weighted import, Alandi, as well as the highest-weighted local, Efficient.
Alandi, who Williams purchased late last year, won two of the four European group 1 open-age races at 2400 metres and beyond last year and has beaten the champion European stayer Yeats at all three meetings.