Steel Prince has moved up the Melbourne Cup ballot order after receiving a weight penalty for his Geelong Cup victory, on Wednesday.
At 11am Thursday morning Racing Victoria Executive General Manager, Greg Carpenter announced, on the Racing Victoria website, that a 1kg penalty would be handed to the 7-year-old gelding for the 2020 Lexus Melbourne Cup.
Steel Prince sat 3rd in running, behind stable mate Le Don De Vie, and Waterhouse runner Entente, before grinding out what was quality edition of the Geelong Cup.
“This year was an extremely strong renewal of the Geelong Cup with four European stayers – all Group or Listed Race winners – making their Australian Debut and this year’s Group 2 Adelaide Cup winner King Of Leogrance also contesting the race,” Greg Carpenter said.
The penalty moved the Anthony and Sam Freedman galloper from 35th in the ballot, however is still slightly outside of the of the top 24 which run in the race.
“When we took into the account the outstanding quality of yesterday’s field, we felt that 1kg was the appropriate penalty for Steel Prince which takes him to 53.5kg and 25th in the order of entry,” Greg Carpenter said.
On the racing.com broadcast post the “gritty” 0.2 length win over stablemate, Le Don De Vie, Sam Freedman, one half of the Freedman stable, couldn’t be happier with him heading into the biggest race of the year.
“It’s credit to this horse (Steel Prince), he’s incredible. He’s obviously been around a while and he just keep’s turning up. I said to Jye (McNeil – Jockey), if he’s there at the top of the straight, he’s a horse just loves a dog fight. He was too strong today.
“The owners have been really patient with him, you know. The owners haven’t pushed us to get him to the Melbourne Cup – they want to look after the horse first. So obviously, we will see how he comes through it, but that’ll be the plan at this stage (to Race in the Lexus Melbourne Cup),” Sam Freedman said.
Although still outside the ballot top 24, Steel Prince should find his way into the race with a few runners ahead of him looking unlikely to press on to the Melbourne Cup.
Toffee Tongue, from Chris Waller Racing, is one of those. In a press release after the Caulfield Cup, it was announced she is heading back to Sydney due to the stable “just feel[ing] she is not ready for a Melbourne Cup this early in her career.”
This likely will be Steel Prince’s second run in the Melbourne Cup after a super 9th last year only beaten 2.1 lengths by Vow And Declare.
Before the Geelong Cup, Steel Prince was $51 (TAB all-in) to win the Melbourne Cup and immediately after was $26, now a $21 chance with TAB.
