Americain - Melbourne Cup! An American horse does it!

[menifee]

Wow - a Kentucky bred wins the Melbourne cup. What a year for this horse - last year could not win a race in the United States. He finished 3rd in optional allowance race at Gulfstream in January. Ends the year winning the Melbourne Cup - what a great way to start Breeders Cup week.

[nijinski]

His name is Americain , his sire is Dynaformer.
He's raced in France won gr2 and gr3 races there .
The horse runs well over Classic distance !!!

[comet52]

I liked the 16.40 payout too! :cool:

[WinterTriangle]

Many more american horses are bred for this.

Here's the problem:

How many races with Pletcher? 4. Wrong races!

As soon as he was sold to Aussies, Royer-Dupre got him winning at least 1-3/4.

What a shame we have horses bred for 1-3/4 and 2 miles who will never get a chance to show they are better longer.

So, US bred but takes a euro to put him right.

[steveb]

I was just reading....

The first horse to beat So You Think was called Star Spangled Banner.
Then it was beaten by All American.
Now it is beaten by Americain.
Truth is stranger than fiction!


Coolmore Stud has just bought a half share of SYT which apparently places a value on him of about 80 million.
Looks like its off to the UK to be trained by Aidan O'Brien

[broadreach]

Any major reason why American horses don't venture to the Melbourne Cup? Especially with the USD/AUD currency parity the $3.6m prizemoney to the winner should have enticed owners/trainers Down Under.

[WinterTriangle]

Any major reason why American horses don't venture to the Melbourne Cup?

Because you have people like Pletcher training them? ;)

It's not enough to be bred for long, you actually have to have races to race in to train up to 2 miles.

Tell me again about the 1-3/4 and 2 mile races in the US.

[foregoforever]

Any major reason why American horses don't venture to the Melbourne Cup? Especially with the USD/AUD currency parity the $3.6m prizemoney to the winner should have enticed owners/trainers Down Under.

The other problem is raceday medications. Not allowed in Australia.

International nominees for the Melbourne Cup are assigned handicap weights in early September that establish their order of getting into the race. The handicapper already gets a fair amount of grief over how he handles the international nominees. How would he assess weights for winners in US races run under our medication rules? And would you want to send a US horse, most likely running on Lasix his entire career, to run 2 miles "first-time-no-lasix"?

Until we get our medication rules in line with the rest of the planet, the US won't be the place of choice to train horses to run anywhere else.

[PhantomOnTour]

A Dynaformer on giving ground...how did I miss it?

Odd that the Aussies refer to horses as 'it' instead of 'she' or 'he'. I noticed this when watching some Melbourne Cup previews. Also, a poster here (SteveB maybe?) referred to So You Think as 'it'.

[steveb]

A Dynaformer on giving ground...how did I miss it?

Odd that the Aussies refer to horses as 'it' instead of 'she' or 'he'. I noticed this when watching some Melbourne Cup previews. Also, a poster here (SteveB maybe?) referred to So You Think as 'it'.

the correct term for a horse/animal would be 'it' is it not?
that's what i was taught in school many years ago
we do call them he, she, donkey, crab, #$@%^%$$%$, or many other names though!

[PhantomOnTour]

the correct term for a horse/animal would be 'it' is it not?
that's what i was taught in school many years ago
we do call them he, she, donkey, crab, #$@%^%$$%$, or many other names though!
I'm not disputing the term; it's just different. I guess we personalize it more. Captains call their boats 'she' for some reason.
What about a pet? Still an 'it'?

[steveb]

I'm not disputing the term; it's just different. I guess we personalize it more. Captains call their boats 'she' for some reason.
What about a pet? Still an 'it'?

if i said, 'hey it, where's my tea', i am sure my life would be over, so no, pets don't get called 'it' :)
i think you're assuming something that doesn't usually happen.
they are personalised over here too.
if i called syt an it, then i was remiss, i'm in love with the horse, so it should have been 'champ'!

[foregoforever]

Odd that the Aussies refer to horses as 'it' instead of 'she' or 'he'. I noticed this when watching some Melbourne Cup previews. Also, a poster here (SteveB maybe?) referred to So You Think as 'it'.

Not all do. Most all race announcers, when they use a pronoun, go with he or she. I think the majority of analysts do as well, but there are certainly quite a few who go with "it".

It struck me as odd at first. But there are a lot of open races with both sexes, and some names don't imply one or the other. I can see that going the "it" route would simplify things.

[Zman179]

I was just reading....

The first horse to beat So You Think was called Star Spangled Banner.
Then it was beaten by All American.
Now it is beaten by Americain.
Truth is stranger than fiction!


Coolmore Stud has just bought a half share of SYT which apparently places a value on him of about 80 million.
Looks like its off to the UK to be trained by Aidan O'Brien

Talk about truth stranger than fiction:
The winner, Americain, from Europe, will now be based in Australia.
The third place finisher, So You Think, from Australia, will now be based in Europe.

[Cardus]

Because you have people like Pletcher training them? ;)

It's not enough to be bred for long, you actually have to have races to race in to train up to 2 miles.

Tell me again about the 1-3/4 and 2 mile races in the US.

Tell me again about the 1 3/4 and two-mile races in Australia that get the Aussie horses ready for the Melbourne Cup?

Somehow, Aussie horses manage to win the Melbourne Cup without more than one prominent race in its spring -- the Lexus Stakes run on Victoria Derby Day three days before the Cup, which is used usually as a "last resort" to be able to run -- run at 1 3/4 or 2 miles. (The other prominent two-mile race is the Sydney Cup, run in April, I believe.)

I am not counting listed stakes or "Class" or "Quality" races, which are ungraded. Horses that win those are usually rank outsiders with little chance to win.

Even the Geelong Cup falls short of this supposedly necessary distance, run at 1 9/16.

Enough Aussie trainers and commentators have said that it takes a good mile-and-a-half horse to win the Melbourne Cup for me to believe that running at 1 3/4 or 2 miles is not necessary.