INTERESTING that the Melbourne Cup winner, Prince Of Penzance, emerged from stall one, that Max Dynamite emerged from stall two and the third horse, Criterion, emerged from stall four. That is beyond coincidence in a field of 24. Unusually, it was probably a help to be drawn on the inside, despite the fact that they tried to negate the apparent draw bias by moving the inside rail out.

It is also interesting that the trends told you that you needed a horse aged four or five who was bred outside of Australia and New Zealand, who was drawn in the middle, who was trained by Chris Waller or Gai Waterhouse or Robert Hickmott or in Japan or in Europe, and who had ideally won last time out.