Some qualifying races this weekend:


The Belmont Gold Cup Invitational will be held Saturday morning, Australian time. Red Cardinal won the race in 2017. Last year the field included Prince of Arran, who went on to take out third place in the Melbourne Cup.

The field this year:
Mootasadir
Noble Thought
Amade
Red Knight
Highland Sky
Arklow
Hunter O'Riley
Raa Atoll
Canessar

Mootasadir is trained by Hugo Palmer who brought out Wall of Fire for the 2017 Melbourne Cup. He's also owned by Sheikh Mohammed bin Khalifa bin Saeed Al Maktoum, cousin of the Dubai ruler and Godolphin head.

Hugo spoke earlier this year regarding Mootasadir's target: "The long-term aim, an end goal, is for him to be a Melbourne Cup horse - but we have got to jump through various hoops to get there first."

One of those hoops may be his poor showing on turf. Of his 9 starts he's had an impressive 6 wins, but those 3 losses (by 3L, 42L, and 18L respectively) have been his only runs on a turf surface. Per the British official ratings, he's a 6kg better horse on All-Weather. Speaking prior to his last loss - which admittedly was against Stradivarius - Palmer said: "He has got excuses for both runs on turf, but he has not done much wrong. Hopefully we can now try and get that win on the turf into him."

The Belmont Gold Cup Invitational is over the turf course. It's also over 3200m: 800m further than his longest race to date.

Raa Atoll is reportedly another horse with Melbourne Cup aims. He won the €100,000 G2 Comer Group International Oleander-Rennen (3200m) at Berlin’s Hoppegarten racecourse, defeating Thomas Hobson by 1.5 lengths, in mid-May. Thomas Hobson was the $1.50 favourite. Watch the race here: https://youtu.be/pgeWkOCIxvQ. The past two winners of the Oleander-Rennen have relocated to Australia - Red Cardinal (2017) and Sound Check (2018) - with both horses unplaced in subsequent Melbourne Cup attempts. Raa Atoll ran a quicker race though, if that counts for anything.

Raa Atoll went up against a few other familiar names last season, finishing just over 1L behind Rostropovich in the 2400m Group 2 King Edward VII Stakes at level weights, then failed badly (58L) in his next race, which featured Best Solution and Duretto.


Also overseas this weekend, runners could pass the first ballot clause in contesting the Belmont Stakes, Brooklyn Invitational Stakes (also at Belmont) or the Betway Pinnacle Stakes (at Haydock Park, UK). Looks unlikely any candidate will come from those races though.


In Australia we're set for the Queensland Derby (first 5 in betting: Nobu, Mr Quickie, Scarlet Dream, Carif, Fun Fact) and Brisbane Cup (Sixties Groove, The Candy Man, Haripour, Life Less Ordinary, Grey Lion) at Eagle Farm this Saturday.