Melbourne Cup Race Guide

Published: 29 Oct 2016

Huge finishing surge - Oceanographer produced an amazing finish to claim a spot in the Melbourne Cup

Click here to see The Melbourne Cup Race Guide

A early preview of the race is provided below.

"It's on again, Australia's greatest race over two miles and the overseas horses are here in force to stake a claim in $6 million of prize-money. Last year's race, while a great story, was plagued by a slow tempo, track bias and plenty of interference. Let's hope for a fairer race this time. The pace should at least be honest with BIG ORANGE, CURREN MIROTIC, EXCESS KNOWLEDGE, ASSIGN, GREY LION and the front-runner QEWY all likely to roll forward. The first question is how well HARTNELL and JAMEKA can stay, both horses that have been dominating recent races with great power and sprint, but this will be a whole different test all together. The pure toughness of JAMEKA and HARTNELL's final 100m in the Cox Plate (after he balanced up) give you some confidence the loca trainers can get another win. Of the overseas horses, both HEARTBREAK CITY and OCEANOGRAPHER profile well, the former winning so impressively at last two starts and OCEANOGRAPHER making up for an unlucky run behind HEARTBREAK CITY at York with two big runs since coming to Australia (this will be 3rd run in 14 days though). In a race full of chances, ALMANDIN is flying and SECRET NUMBER has been aimed at this for a while now. BIG ORANGE and CURREN MIROTIC both tough on-pace and can win if the race shapes for their type, WICKLOW BRAVE (bad barrier) in the mix, EXOSPHERIC and BONDI BEACH not far off. It will be another grandstand finish!"