Atlas was a champion Titan stayer who was handicapped to carry the sky in the Zeus War Stakes.
Anamoe is at this stage only a top-line three year old sprinter-miler, but he’s been tasked with carrying the sky too.
I’m talking about the weight that the NSW handicapper has given the James Cummings trained colt’s weight in the Doncaster.
56.5 kilograms the colt’s been given.
It’s absolutely outrageous.
You can’t handicap a horse for a Group 1 race on potential and ability, you have to make the assessment on a fair and objective comparison of their race record against that of all the other entrants for the race, and by using age and the weight-for-age scale as a guide.
The WFA Scale for a mile race run in April like the Doncaster is this:
3YO C&G – 56.5kg
3YO Fillies -54.5kg
4YO and over Male – 59.0kg
4YO and over Female – 57.0kg
The handicapper has therefore given Anamoe the weight that he would have got at WFA.
Anamoe is an outstanding young galloper, there is no doubt about that. He has won two Group 1’s – the AJC Sires Produce and the Caulfield Guineas – and three Group 2’s in the Todman, Run To The Rose and Hobartville Stakes.
But all of those wins were in age restricted races: the Todman and Sires against 2YO’s, and the Rose, Guineas and Hobartville against 3YO’s.
The reality is that he has never won a Group race of any sort against all comers, and has been beaten on both occasions that he has tried, in the Expressway and in the Cox Plate. Sure, his second in the Cox Plate was outstanding, but he carried only 49.5kg against only 7 other runners, and that race was run at 2040m not a mile.
Gai Waterhouse’s champion 3YO Pierro is a perfect point of comparison, for they raced in many of the same elite races during the part of their 3 and 3-year-old careers.
Here are the races they both contested.
Todman G2- Pierro 1st/Anamoe 1st
Golden Slipper G1 – Pierro 1st/Anamoe 3rd
Sires Produce G1 – Pierro 1st/Anamoe 1st
Run To Roses G2 – Pierro 1st/Anamoe 1st
Caulfield Guineas G1 – Pierro 2nd/Anamoe 1st
Cox Plate G1 – Pierro 3rd/Anamoe 2nd
Hobartville G2 – Pierro 1st/Anamoe 1st
They look very similar don’t they, and quite evenly matched.
But there are a couple of big differences.
Pierro won not just the Golden Slipper, which Anamoe didn’t, but he also won the coveted 2YO Group 1 Triple Crown – the Slipper, the Champagne Stakes and the Sires.
Anamoe won just one of them, the Sires.
That is one, but it is the next differential that is the kicker.
In his second prep as a 3YO – his Doncaster prep – other than his win in the Hobartville, Pierro raced twice in Group 1’s against older horses, really good ones too, and beat them both times.
Those wins came in the Canterbury Stakes, where he beat More Joyous who herself won eight Group 1 races, and in the time honoured George Main Stakes in which he trounced a host of elite grade open class gallopers including the quadruple Group 1 winner Shoot Out, and the Triple Group 1 winners Happy Trails, Danleigh and Manighar.
In stark contrast Anamoe’s two runs other than the Hobartville have been defeats in the Expressway Stakes by Overpass, who has never won a Group 1 race, and in age restricted company in the Rosehill Guineas where he was beaten by Converge, whose sole Group 1 win to that date had been in a very weak edition of the 2-year-old J.J. Atkins in the Queensland winter.
Pierro’s form was lengths superior to Anamoe’s at that stage of their career, particularly in the second phase of their 3YO season.
He got 57kg in the Doncaster, and ran second.
Anamoe has been weighted at only a half kilogram – or about 3/4 of a length – less.
That’s not right.
Let’s compare Anamoe to the top weighted Doncaster entrant Zaaki, the former European Group race winner.
Zaaki has had just ten starts in Australia, all in open Group company, and has won three Group 1’s and three Group 2’s.
He was been weighted at 58.5kg, a half kilo below weight for age, while Anamoe is forced to carry his full WFA freight.
Kolding is a dual Group 1 winner, the wins coming over the Doncaster distance in Sydney’s two best WFA mile races, the George Main and the All Aged Stakes. He also won the Golden Eagle, which should be a Group 1.
His handicap is 56.5kg, the same as the 3YO Anamoe and 2.5 kilograms below WFA.
The mare Tofane has won four Group 1’s.
She carries 55.5kg, one and a half kilos under WFA.
I could go on, but I think I have made the point.
Anamoe is horribly over-weighted, and will have to be an absolute champion to win.
Allow me to top it off by telling you that no three-year-old in the past 50 years has won the Doncaster carrying weight for age.
The only one who has ever come close is the injury plagued ten time Group 1 winning champion Tontonan, one of the greatest horses Australia had ever seen. He came into the Doncaster having won 3 Group 1’s from just 8 starts, in the Slipper, the Sires, and the Oakleigh Plate.
Tontonan carried 56kg to victory in the Donnie.
Here are the weights carried by the 3YO winners of the race in the 21st century.
The highest of them is 2.5 kilos less that what Anamoe will bear.
Good luck if you are backing him, cos you are betting that he is the greatest 3YO miler in history.
Brutal – 49.5kg
Kermadec – 51.0kg
Sacred Falls – 53.0kg
Triple Honour – 51.0kg
Haradasun – 53.0kg
Racing To Win – 51.0kg
Assertive Lad – 54.0kg
Over – 51.5kg
The weights for the Doncaster Handicap can be found here https://racingaustralia.horse/FreeFields/Weights.aspx?Key=2022Apr02%2CNSW%2CRoyal%20Randwick