Sport is made for betting

It doesn't get any better than a horse race that has a public holiday for it. The Melbourne Cup will be run tomorrow (3pm local time, 4am GMT). This may be the strongest Cup ever, it's certainly the best in my era with Group 1 winners galore, but it also has a few that should have been excluded on recent form. So You Think is an absolute superstar. It showed on Saturday it can settle, go to sleep and then switch back on when necessary. That's what Saintly did to win in 1996, and only a rough trip in running is likely to beat him. From gate three, he might just squeezed and shuffled back a bit. Even still, very hard to beat him, no major concern about the distance despite not having run further than 2040m, High Chaparral's are flying in Aus at the moment and it would be fitting for the 150th Melbourne Cup to go to the master, Bart Cummings. As for the others: Shocking - won last year, goes up in weight, but loves Flemington. Was drawn v.wide last year so not bother...

This is an important day for Australian racing, the day when the weights are released for all the big spring feature races. Melbourne Cup weights are headed by 2007 Cup winner Efficient and 2008 Cox Plate winner Maldivian on 58kg, followed by last year's winner Viewed and two Godolphin entries, Eastern Anthem and Schiaparelli on 57kg. Other notable foreign entries are Kirklees (Godoplhin) 57kg; Cima de Triomphe (Cumani) 55.5kg; Doctor Fremantle (Stoute) and Macarthur (de Kock) 55kg; Mourilyan (Moore) 54.5kg; Age of Reason (Godoplhin), King of Rome (de Kock), Scintillo (Hannon) 54kg; Askar Tau (Tregoning) and Profound Beauty (Weld) 53.5kg; Singapore champion mare Jolie's Shinju 52.5; Friston Forest (Godolphin) 52kg; Basaltico (Cumani) 51.5kg; Age of Aquarius (O'Brien) 51kg; Changingoftheguard (O'Brien) 50.5kg. First acceptances are taken next Tuesday. Click here for the full list of VRC spring feature weights

It doesn't get any better than this. Well, actually Derby Day (last Saturday) is the best day of racing in the world IMO due to the quality in every race, but the Cup is the race everyone talks about. And in the best city in the world, Melbourne, they even get a holiday for it. Brilliant. Who will win it? It's a tough race this year, with eight raiders from Europe, some very handy Kiwis and an Australian contingent markedly weaker than any year I can recall. The Europeans want to make it a genuine staying test, with the Ballydoyle support staff (can't say pacemakers!) ensuring the race will be run at a steady clip. I can see a lot of runners going hard early and trying to sit up close. Some will have to be parked wide for the trip... Septimus is the class horse, but over the years, the class horses such as Drum Taps, Oscar Schindler, Double Trigger and Yeats have been sent home with their tails between their legs. Big weights in handicaps bring class horses undone. I think ...