ONE of the appealing things for those approaching the Melbourne Cups – be it bettors, trainers, connections – is the relative predictability of the conditions. The ground is usually good, the draw is seldom a death sentence and the pace of the race is typically good or strong (of the last six runnings, five have had finishing speeds of between 103-105%).

The decision to water ahead of rain left the ground softer than usual (good-to-soft) but the remaining conditions were within the usual barometers and it fell to Cross Counter, the first British-trained winner of the race for Godolphin.

His claims were obvious: he’d put up an excellent performance at Goodwood on the clock, a similarly good second at York and was running off a fly-weight of 8st, in receipt of the (overly-generous) three-year-old allowance. Cross Counter actually broke slowly, and raced in last for much of the trip, but was able to get plenty of cover off what was a well-run, if not disproportionately well-run, contest – something backed up by the spread in the placings – the first and second came from off the pace, the third, fourth and fifth raced prominently. There’s little doubt that Cross Counter was the best horse in the race relative to weight-carried (a final two furlong-split of a shade over 23s was excellent at the end of a well-run two miles), it’s important to make note of the allowance he received. Cross Counter, and last year’s winner Rekindling, were both northern hemisphere three-year-olds receiving nearly 4lb in addition to what would be expected running in Europe.

You’d be hard pushed to argue that weight didn’t make a difference to the result in both circumstances, and it will be interesting to see if the Australian handicapper takes cognisance of in framing the race in 2019.