Ispolini has been sitting on top of 'the system' rankings and will still be there come raceday, given that he's not expected to have a lead-up run ahead of The Cup. There's actually some sub-sorting of those horses on equal scores that has heretofore gone unmentioned. Those with a weight advantage are listed foremost. Cross Counter has a 118 handicap from the British Horseracing Authority and Ispolini has 115. That means that the latter should carry 1.5kg less than the former. Instead Ispolini carries 55kg to Cross Counter's 57.5kg. 6 horses of the current top-24 have a weight advantage (with respect to Cross Counter) and only Master of Reality (-2kg) and Il Paradiso (-1.5kg) fare better than Ispolini does.

A more direct comparison between Ispolini and his stablemate Cross Counter can be made: they faced each other in Cross Counter's first race following his 2018 Melbourne Cup victory: the Dubai World Cup. Held over 3200m the two were at level weights with Ispolini finishing just 1.25L behind: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vxryP4DxT-Q&t=1s. Also in the race was Gold Mount (8.25L back), Red Galileo (31L back); and Prince of Arran (31.25L back) - each carrying 2.5kg extra. Ispolini now has a 2.5kg swing in his favour in the Melbourne Cup.

I've said that unlike previous years I've struggled to identify a run that got me excited. Maybe it's this one by Ispolini, his race prior: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Tf0mhcEXq7Y. He beats 2nd - Red Galileo again - by over 10 lengths. It's still over a second outside of the track record (by Almoonqith) but he does it very easily.

Less impressive was his return to England following his UAE campaign, the Yorkshire Cup Stakes: https://twitter.com/RacingTV/status/1129387744101314561. He's well-beaten by Stradivarius (fair enough) but also Southern France - and the latter gets a further 2kg in his favour in the Melbourne Cup. Was Ispolini's performance here too bad to be true? It was a big drop from what was shown in Meydan and he was sent for a spell afterwards, so perhaps. The Racing Post has it that the race was 5secs slower than par, so he might not have been suited by the race shape either.

He most recently resumed in Dortmund at the Deutsches St Leger, taking out the win but not putting paid to his competition. The rest of the first 4 were rated at 107 going into the race (2nd placegetter Djukon carried 4kg less, in his second career start, otherwise they were at equal weights). It looks to be on a par with his Yorkshire Cup Stakes performance. Instead of asking what went wrong there, it might be better to ask what went right in Meydan? Over there he was 2 wins and 2 seconds from 4 starts. His remaining two career wins were his maiden (on All-Weather for a purse under $10k) and what looks a middling performance in Dortmund. With such inconsistency it would have been very helpful to see him have a run in Australia ahead of the big dance....

His Dosage Profile is (2-16-13-10-1) with Points Across The Board. His DI is 1.4 and Cd is 0.19. This would suggest a most suited distance of around 3000m. His Conduit Mare Profile is very symmetrical: (7-7-4-7-7) with Speed and Stamina both 14, a Conduit Index of 1 and Triads (18-18-18). This is very atypical for a Melbourne Cup runner, just over 5.5% of those this century have a Speed figure greater than or equal to their Stamina figure. The best finisher of these was Criterion (3rd in 2015), then Big Duke (4th in 2017). 2015 was a sit and sprint/demolition derby and one could argue that there are few conclusions that can be drawn from it. And Big Duke was a freakish outlier compared to the others of this group as his Stamina points mostly came from the Professional category: he had 11 whereas the next highest had 6.

Also having a huge points total in the Professional category (11) was Rekindling. He was the winner with the lowest gap between Speed (16) and Stamina (18) so far this century. One could argue his victory also had a lot to do with him receiving a handicap that was too friendly.

I liked Ispolini going into this profile but now I'm not so sure. I certainly don't like his Conduit Mare figures. I also think he would have been better suited by a local run or two. If he brings his Meydan form he's certainly not without hope, but it seems likelier that he'll be 5-7 lengths or so off the pace, given his last couple of runs. Horses have finished 3rd through 17th within that range, so it depends on your faith in 'the system' as to where you think he'll end up.