So only horses that "swoop" win there the do they?

I already gave you an explanation why it isn't so go back and read it again........or maybe you just cherry pick the ones that "swoop" and conveniently forget the ones that don't. Did So You Think swoop when winning last season's race because from my memory he tracked the leader and then was in front off the final bend and with at least 200m to go. Or what about the year before when he led from the start.....maybe he was "swooping" from the front eh? If I remember rightly Maldivian led all the way in 2008 too.

Like I said before, no tracks are swoopers tracks because it depends on the horses being good enough to be doing the swooping, or not as the case may be. You may as well say Epsom is a swoopers track because some horses have come from off the pace to win the Derby but enough have either led all the way or been handily placed too during the race.

So if it gives all runners a chance then that must include the ones that don't "swoop" and run up with the pace or front run and make all (just like 3 of the last 4 Cox Plate winners) so then why do you somehow consider it a "swoppers" track? Do all runners race in the middle of the course, away from the inside rail and come wide and late ffs?

Do yourself a favour and stop tying because even I'm feeling embarrassed for you now.

So megsy that's a long winded way of saying anything can happen and horses can win from the front or coming from behind but somehow according to you it's a "swoopers" track......hmmmm.

You are taking one race as it was run on Saturday as the template for how the Cox Plate is won, when I've already pointed out to you that 3 of the last 4 runnings were won by horses either up with the pace throughout or led all the way, Maldivian led all the way in 2008, So You Think did in 2009 and was was never out of the first 2 when winning in 2010. Like I said, no such thing as a swoopers track and horses only swoop to win if they are good enough to.

Anyway sorry tommyjone as I missed your post before but all I was suggesting regarding Glass Harmonium is that he seemed to regularly be contesting a high group level of race over there compared to here. Thanks for not reducing it to childish insults too by the way and I'll bow to your greater knowledge of Aussie racing as to the reasons why but as you yourself touched on, clearly the Cox Plate run wasn't his true form and as I mentioned earlier, horses like Rekindled Interest and Efficient (twice) had previously finished behind GH too yet beat him on the CP.

Something else that I noticed too that you very rarely see here is GH running in headgear over there in a Gr1 and other Group races. Plus Byword and Twice Over would be a fair way from the very best Gr1 horses in Europe over the past few seasons.

What's even funnier is that when So You Think doesn't live up to the hype over here that apparently it's all the fault of the trainer being useless and not having a clue how to train horses, despite him being one of the most successful trainers ever. Yet when a UK or Irish horse goes over there and flops then it's nothing to do with the trainer and all because they horse was supposedly "outclassed."

Let me see if I can help explain why Alandi might be flopping over there. The horse never saw a racecourse as a 2YO and made its debut at 3 in a 12f race and until going over there, 12f was the shortest trip it had ever run over. It also won the Vintage Crop Stakes (big clue in the name there) at 13f, Irish St Leger at 14f (1m6f) and the Prix du Cadran at Lonchamp 20f (2m4f) all staying races. So what distances does the horse compete in when it goes over there? A 6f sprint and a twice over a mile.......I think I can see the problem here.

Doctor Freemantle was no great shakes here by the way. It was 4th in a poor Derby year apart for the winner, one that was so poor that Aidan O'Brien ran 5 and the best he could get was 5th place. When he runs that many you know he doesn't have a stand-out one so goes for the scattergun approach, hoping if he fires enough ammo that he might just hit the target. He did the same in the Derby Authorized won by running. Doctor Freemantle was Michael Stoute's and his other runner finished 2nd in the Derby that year beaten ½L but was later 3rd beaten in the Irish Derby and only won once after that (beating an ex-handicapper) from 4 more starts and was beaten in the King George by another of Stoute's that had dropped back in trip from winning the St Leger the year before.

Doctor Freemantle was a Gr2 and Gr3 horse at best and only won 5 of its 14 races, with its final race here being a Gr1 and finishing 11th of 14 and 24L behind Twice Over. The horse had done all of it's winning at 10f or 12f apart from one 8f win as a 2YO but goes over there and is started off at 8f, a distance it had not raced over for 3 years. It has only once since going over there raced at the same distance in consecutive races having gone 8f, 10f, 10f, 8f, 12f, 11f and 12f and here you can't mess horses about in trip like that, although it might be different over there but the results don't seem to suggest it with a horse used to racing in a different way and in a different country.

The problem with just looking at aussie form ima_mazed and seeing a horse get beat one week by another is that half of the time horses aren't even trying in lead up races or aren't wound up.

In aussie most horses going towards the cox plate race through 7f, 8f and 9 / 10f races before the cox plate, but they're not necessarily trying to win or even wanting to win (wouldn't want the horse in that good of shape so early).

Rekindled interest wasn't anywhere near trying to win the race GH beat him in.

The other problem with aussie is that G1 status can be quite misleading. You can win or place in a G1 without facing 1st tier horses. The one the December Draw beat Glass Harmonium is a classic example of that. The only other horse wound up in that was Playing God who also finished 7L back in the cox plate. And GH/DD were both giving him weight in the weak G1.

Another thing that can prove misleading in aussie is the lack of pace in a lot of races. So you get a horse like GH who likes to lead (at least in aussie he did) and he dictates a slow pace. All he has to do then is be half decent and a bit of a fighter and he can hold on top 2nd/3rd spot against anything except a top class field, the straights (apart from flemington) are not even quite 2f.

The basic point is, although GH didn't get to run his race in the cox plate, you can never seriously quote results from aussie apart from in the cox plate for top horses. Horses can show signs (if you're following aussie racing properly) in other races and some really good or really consistant one's will win lead up races.

But if you're just simply reading the form with no other knowledge, then you're unlikely to be able to draw any kind of proper comparison from horses between their euro form and their aussie form.

And just on SYT, it might interest people to know that the horse than ran 2nd to him in the Cox Plate was a 9 year old called Zipping. An old war horse no doubt, but a non-winner. Never won a group 1 until last season and placed all his career, so maybe it puts SYT in some better perspective.

I meant a non-winner in the top grad for most of his career.