Did we finally see the form franking race ahead of the Melbourne Cup?! No, not the Caulfield Cup! The Long Distance Cup held at Ascot overnight. Kew Gardens and Stradivarius were in a battle royale: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6g4bPQSAiM8. Stradivarius takes the lead and looks like he'll run away but Kew Gardens won't lie down, fights back and beats him in a photo.

An enduring criticism of Stradivarius - despite winning every contest since coming 2nd to Order of St George in the 2017 running of the very same race - is that he never puts his opposition away. 9 of those 10 victories were inside of two lengths; the biggest win just 3 lengths. While there's no shame in getting beaten by Stradivarius, the margin often doesn't give a fair indication of his combatants' efforts. Even in this race, he makes up the two lengths he's behind early on in the straight, but that strong move stops once he knows that he's hit the lead. Kew Gardens then pushes him along, they both draw away from the rest of the runners and either Stradivarius tires slightly when finally being stretched in this manner, else it's a lucky bob.

This race was only moved to Ascot in 2011 so it's hard to do much in the way of time analysis, but it's the fastest since that inaugural running (which was on Good, whereas the track grading here was changed to Soft after this race). 3rd place was 5 lengths back , 4th 6 lengths adrift and the rest 10 lengths and beyond.

So instead of looking at horses who went up against Stradivarius to determine form, how about looking at those in relation to Kew Gardens? Unfortunately Kew Gardens suffered an injury following the Coronation Cup and missed around 3 months of the European season. In that race he ran up to his career high, finishing 0.5L behind Defoe.

He returned for the St Leger but his trainer Aidan O'Brien claimed that he "barely made it back" in time. Still, he finished ahead of Southern France (1.5L), Cross Counter (1.75L), Master of Reality (1.75L), Latrobe (3.25L) and Twilight Payment (4L); second only to Search For A Song, the 3yo filly the field let get out to a huge lead who ran on. Racing Post rated his run 5 points below that in the Coronation Cup and 6 below that in the Long Distance Cup, so while it might be a good race to compare the other runners to each other (all at equal weights) it might be inaccurate to compare them to Kew Gardens' better performances.

Looking back at the Coronation Cup, Marmelo is worryingly a 9 length 5th - though there is a race comment that he was held up and 2400m is less than ideal for him. Following the winner Defoe though, he goes from the Coronation Cup to the Hardwicke Stakes. Racing Post give him just 1 rating point lower in that than for his previous. Who's finishing in third? It's yesterday's third placegetter in the Caulfield Cup at $16: Mirage Dancer. (....and an 8-length 6th is Southern France).

So maybe the top-6 in the Caulfield Cup (who all finished within 2 lengths of the winner) are going pretty alright. They're all doing quite well per 'the system'. Only Mer de Glace (more than 5 career wins) and Mirage Dancer ($16 or greater in their previous race) lose any possible points. Their ability over distance could be a differentiating factor though: Finche we know about, Vow And Declare has convincingly won a Group 3000m earlier this year and Mustajeer won the Ebor Cup over 2800m. The rest haven't run beyond 2400m.