Defending champion Without A Fight has been assigned topweight of 58.5kg for the 2024 Melbourne Cup (3200m) at Flemington Racecourse in November.
Racing Victoria’s Head of Handicapping, David Hegan, has formulated the weights for ‘the race that stops the nation’ and may have underestimated some of the international contenders.
The publication of the weights is guaranteed to attract plenty of attention from the form experts on respected betting site comparison platform Only Racing.
They will now have the opportunity to unpick Hegan’s assessment of the Melbourne Cup runners before issuing their Flemington race tips for the big race.
The tipsters may be drawn towards the Willie Mullins-trained Vauban, who finished unplaced when favourite for the 2023 edition of the prestigious race.
He has been allocated 55.5kg, which is 0.5kg more than he carried last year. However, the six-year-old appears to have improved this season.
Vauban was a gritty winner of the Group 2 Lonsdale Cup Stakes ay York last month, before finishing second behind Kyprios in the Group 1 Irish St Leger at The Curragh last weekend.
Jockey Ryan Moore did not cover himself in glory in last year’s Melbourne Cup and it will be intriguing to see if Mullins tries to secure the services of a local rider this time around.
Hegan said: “Of the overseas contingent, it was not hard to be taken by the effort of Vauban in the Irish St Leger behind an elite horse in Kyprios.
“Whilst connections may have been disappointed with his defeat in last year’s Melbourne Cup, it is never wise to underestimate Willie Mullins and so a small rise in the weights to 55.5 kilograms is a proportionate increase given his recent performances.”
Several other international raiders may have been handed lenient marks for the Melbourne Cup judging by the form they have shown in Europe.
They include Jan Brueghel (54kg) and Illinois (53kg), who filled the first two places in the English St Leger at Doncaster last weekend.
Both horses are trained in the Republic of Ireland by Aidan O’Brien, who is yet to record a victory in the Melbourne Cup despite making several previous attempts to achieve the feat.
O’Brien has also nominated Point Lonsdale (55.5kg), Grosvenor Square (52kg), The Euphrates (50.5kg) and The Equator (50kg) for the Melbourne Cup.
His compatriot Dermot Weld has won the race twice before with Vintage Crop in 1993 and Media Puzzle in 2002 and he has another live contender this year.
Harbour Wind has never finished out of the first two in all seven career starts, recording four wins. He recently placed in a Group 3 in France.
Weld hinted the horse could head to Australia after he won on his seasonal reappearance at Limerick in June and everything points to the four-year-old running a big race.
Hegan admitted Harbour Wind was the most difficult horse to assess when allocating the weights and believes Weld could have shrewdly plotted another successful raid on the Melbourne Cup.
"With the preparation Harbour Wind has had - only seven starts and the two runs this year - you'd normally expect a horse targeting the Cups to have another run," Hegan added.
"I'm a bit concerned he might have a bit up his sleeve. It's a very Irish style preparation, but at 53kg that's weighted right up to his absolute best, if not a half kilo beyond.
"With his profile I can't take him too far in the weights. I'd suspect he's got a lot more to offer but he has been weighted right up to his maximum."
