Hi, I am a biased fan of FAIRWAY so I notice his name quickly in articles. In recent weeks racing jurno's have been compare this years race field or cups contenders to last years to find clues to likely winners.

Take yesterdays Turnball Stakes. Sunline was the fav again, but can she winner.(she did). Recent history has the AJC Derby winner as the race winner. Sky Hights in 1999 and last year Fairway.

The leadup reports this year recalled last years head to head sprint from about 800 meters out between Sunline and Fairway. Fairway held the lead all the way to win in one of the great races of the season. Sadly it was to be his last win.

This year the jurno's were pointing to Universal Prince being the winner, simple because he won the AJC Derby. As it turned out, He came from miles back to take second to Sunline.

Last year Fairway was regularly written off by most jurno's as being inconsistent, even unpredictable. (which proves they don't do research, check out his win % and black type wins). Then those same jurno's a year later write up Fairway in glowing terms to make it look like they know something.

Did I rate universal Prince as a winner? No, he is inconsistent, even unpredictable as a betting proposition. I feel he is set for a specific race and does a number of lead up races to get fitness and tactics sorted out. Check out his lead up runs to the AJC derby, they were like chalk and cheese. I'm still not sure if the Caulfield cup or Melbourne cup is his main target.

In conclusion I do not place much importance on last years winner to provide pearls of wisdom in selecting this years winner. Basically top line horses consistently win black type races, but which one wins on the day has more to do with current form and improvment trends than historical star gazing.

I still like Northerly for the Cox Plate and Native Jazz for the Caulfield Cup. Damn it, I do like the look of Universal Prince for the Melbourne Cup.

Good Punting, Horse Cents