By Michael Guerin
Dream About Me has one glaring weakness heading into tomorrow’s $250,000 Auckland Cup — her sex.
The exceptional four-year-old has been the long-time favourite for the great race, even though a second line draw could see her lose that mantle to stablemate Titan Banner on the tote tomorrow.
Trainer-driver Mark Purdon isn’t overly worried by her draw, suggesting the fact Dream About Me is following out good beginners negates the damage.
That aside, she has the breeding, the group one record, the track stats, the x-factor and is in the perfect stable to win an Auckland Cup.
But while she may be on the way to becoming a champion mare, that last part should be reason for concern. Because mares have a worse record in the Auckland Cup that just about any other major race in this country.
The last mare to win the Cup was Flight South in 2000 and she paid $108, while the only other girl to grab the gold in the last 33 years is Kate’s First.
Some exceptional mares have tried and failed in that time, including New Zealand Cup winners Adore Me, Mainland Banner and Kym’s Girl.
Add to that the fact Dream About Me is still only four, has only had one serious open class start for a luckless 6th in the NZ Free-For-All and she has that pesky second line draw and she starts to look a false favourite, or at least too short.
She is a special mare who has run some sensational times and Purdon has openly compared her to Adore Me but she might need to be every bit as good as her close relation to win tomorrow.
So while she has spent most of the week around the $2.20 quote, punters will want $2.80 or even $3 to be getting real value and that probably won’t turn up, especially with the strong Australian co-mingling as Dream About Me is unbeaten there.
Aiding her chances of ending the girl power drought is the fact this is hardly a deep Auckland Cup, with plenty of very good horses but not many great ones, the obvious exception being Dream About Me’s older half-brother Christen Me.
He has nothing left to prove in his awesome career, which is just as well because he looks a two or three length inferior horse to what he was when he won this race two seasons ago.
Others like Hughie Green, Hug The Wind, Tara Tiger, obviously Chase The Dream and even No Doctor Needed have shown enough to suggest they have blowout hopes but the horses who ticks almost all the boxes for tomorrow is Titan Banner.
He has been amazing in the last month, overcoming two brutally hard runs to win both the Summer and Franklin Cups and was a brave third in Lazarus’s New Zealand Cup last month.
Titan Banner looks to be in the zone, happy and healthy, has good standing start manners and is a natural stayer. If he can get to the front without having to do anything silly, it is going to take a huge performance to run him down.
While standing start manners and luck in the running always have a role to play in 3200m cups, the markets and recent wins suggest those factors won’t be as important in tomorrow’s other huge races.
Ultimate Machete seems to have too much physical strength for his rivals in the $200,000 Sales Series Pace but is so short he is really only of use as a multi anchor.
The same could be said for Spanish Armada in the Sires’ Stakes Fillies Champs, although the best version of Delightful Memphis can always test her.
And anybody who saw Marcoola put nearly 12 lengths on his rivals at Cambridge last Saturday will be reluctant to back against him in the $80,000 National Trot.
The tactics of his trainer-driver Clint Ford will be interesting as he probably can’t risk going forward hard at the start so may have to settle before looping the field in the middle stages.
If he can do that and wrest the front he looks home, if he has to sit parked then being a four-year-old over 2700m mobile he could be slightly vulnerable, with Bordeaux and Quite A Moment having the stamia to suggest they could upset if the favourite has a tough night at the office.
Approved By Dean Baring www.harnessbred.com
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