Mer De Glace is on a streak of 6 victories that extends back to the start of the year and culminated in the Caulfield Cup. Caulfield Cup winners don't have a great record in the Melbourne Cup: only 11 horses have done the double in history. The last of these was Ethereal in 2001.

He's the current second favourite with perhaps the biggest question mark being his aptitude at the Cup distance. His 2400m Caulfield Cup win was actually the furthest distance over which he's competed. The bulk of his career, since turning 3, has been over either 2000m or 2200m.

Per his Dosage Profile (7-0-21-2-0), DI (1.4) and CD (0.4); he might be pushing it to get the distance. That looks like 2400m is ideal. His Conduit Mare Profile is (3-5-7-11-2) with Speed 8, Stamina 13, Index 0.82 and Triads (15-23-20). That looks around 2000m is ideal.

That Stamina figure is lower than any other winner this century. There have been 26 runners with a figure of 13, they have an average finishing position of 14th with a best finish of 2nd (Yippyio in 2000). It's not so cut and dried though: there have been 4 placegetters with a Stamina figure even lower. One was Criterion in 2015, though that was an atypical sit and sprint dodgem derby. Another was Jardine's Lookout in 2003 4 lengths back in 3rd. And the final two were both from 2006, curiously also both with low Speed figures: Pop Rock (an omen?) and nearly 5 lengths back Maybe Better. I think the race type and field quality has moved on from the early-mid 2000s so I hold concerns over the distance.

His profile is very similar to that of Admire Rakti, who also won the Caulfield Cup - and had a sad end following the 2014 Melbourne Cup.... They both have a very low figure for the Professional category (i.e. the rightmost) in the Conduit Mare Profile. Only 9 of the 400+ horses who have contested the Cup this century have had a figure of 2 or lower. The best finish was 5th - and all of them had a Speed figure of at least 10 to counteract that somewhat.

All that being said: his Caulfield Cup win was pretty good. No other runner covered as much ground as he did, but he still powers comfortably to the lead in the straight and holds off the rest of the field: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=esSOa1T_6M4.

You can watch more vision of him here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=m6CRUmvHl-k. Looking a little closer, his Kokura Kinen run was the 4th slowest in the past 17 years. Both his Naruo Kinen and Niigata Kinen are of middling time. ...though not many of those runners compete outside of Japan to lend much in the way of comparison.

The 2nd placegetter in the Niigata Kinen, finishing 0.3L behind Mer De Glace, just ran the Group 1 Autumn Tenno Sho this past weekend and got smashed by 14 lengths. The horses we've tended to get here in Australia have contested (and generally done better) at the Tenno Sho. Mer De Glace's only Group 1 race is the Caulfield Cup, with all his other blacktype at Group 3 level.

Track surface is another area of concern. He'll be hoping it stays dry: only one run on Soft and it was no good. His sire has pretty abysmal wet weather stats for his offspring also. On a Good track Mer De Glace is 1w-1p/4s. On Firm is where he's been smashing it: 7w-6p/13s.

Damien Lane will be his jockey after striking up a profitable relationship with the horse (2w/2 for around $2million dollars prizemoney in Japan) and winning the trust of his trainer, who acquiesced to Lane's plea to bring Mer De Glace to Australia. He'll be well-rested for the Cup as he picked up a 10 meeting suspension for his ride at Caulfield, shifting in when not clear of another horse (Sound was badly effected).

If Mer De Glace was first up in the Cup I wouldn't rate him highly. His performance in the Caulfield Cup is the only thing lending me caution. Doing the double seems a particularly difficult ask for him though. He's carrying just 1.5kg less than Cross Counter and is rated 6-9 points lower, with those points earned at a distance to which he appears far better suited. I just can't have him among my top picks. I may end up looking silly(er) but I'm even inclined to think that he's more likely to finish in the 2nd half of the field than the first.