by Brad Bishop (racingvictoria.net.au)Americain and Dunaden had enough against them in Saturday's $2.5 million BMW Caulfield Cup without drawing nightmare barriers. The French stars - who have won the past two Emirates Melbourne Cups, each carrying 54.5kg - need to do something unique in order to win the world's richest 2400-metre handicap.They shared the 58kg joint topweight when weights were released in late August and never has the original topweight won the Caulfield Cup, which was first run

by Brad Bishop (racingvictoria.net.au)

Americain and Dunaden had enough against them in Saturday's $2.5 million BMW Caulfield Cup without drawing nightmare barriers. The French stars - who have won the past two Emirates Melbourne Cups, each carrying 54.5kg - need to do something unique in order to win the world's richest 2400-metre handicap.

They shared the 58kg joint topweight when weights were released in late August and never has the original topweight won the Caulfield Cup, which was first run in the autumn of 1879.

The 2012 Caulfield Cup will be the 20th edition that has seen the original topweight, or topweights, participate and a handful of third placings are the best results.

Kingston Town was the most recent to place, under 60kg in 1980, while Gunsynd (62kg, 1972), Craftsman (9lb6oz - or 60kg - 1965), Dhaulagiri (9lb6oz, 1961) and Gothic (9lb7oz, 1928) were the others to finish third.

Doriemus (58kg, 1996), Violoncello (9lb7oz, 1922) and Malua (9lb12oz - 62.5kg - 1884) all ran fourth as original topweights, while a further three have finished fifth with four others occupying a top-10 placing.

Racing Victoria's chief handicapper Greg Carpenter said Saturday's race would be only the second time joint original topweights had contested the Caulfield Cup and he wouldn't be surprised if this was the year that the hoodoo was broken.

"The only other time joint original topweights have gone into the race was exactly 30 years ago when Gunsynd and Gay Icarus carried 62kg each into third and fifth place respectively in the 1972 edition," Carpenter said.

"American and Dunaden have proven themselves to be world-class stayers in the last two years and despite the burden of history, their topweights and wide draws, collectively they represent a genuine chance for the Caulfield Cup hoodoo for topweights to at last be broken."

Since Tobin Bronze carried 9lb10oz (61.5kg) to victory in 1967, only six horses have carried more than 54.5kg to victory.

Gay Icarus, who lumped 9lb2oz (58kg) in 1971, Ming Dynasty (58kg, 1980) and Northerly (58kg, 2002) are the only winners to have carried at least 58kg in that time.

Geoffrey Fabre, representative for Dunaden's trainer Mikel Delzangles, agrees with Carpenter that this is the year for the hoodoo to be broken and will be surprised if weight is the reason the reigning Melbourne Cup champion is defeated.

"I'm not concerned about the weight, actually, because he's such a class animal he can carry that weight," Fabre said of Dunaden.

"There were horses I was frightened of when the weights first came out but they're not running, the horses that I thought were well-handicapped against him, so I'm not worried about the weight at all."

Fabre is more concerned about Dunaden's barrier with the seven-year-old to jump from the outside barrier in the 18-horse field. Americain fared only marginally better and will spring from gate 16 if the emergencies don't gain a start.