A closer look at the Australian Guineas

First, the son of Maurice won the 2500-metre VRC Derby third-up off a 1350m Donald maiden win and a fifth placing in the 1600-metre Caulfield Guineas, becoming the most lightly-raced Derby winner in more than a century.

Next up, he broke new ground winning the Group 1 Australian Guineas (1600m) first-up from a spell.

In the process, he became just the third horse to complete the Derby/Guineas double and first since Mahogany in 1993/94. The first was King’s High in 1988/89.

Maher is chasing another Australian Guineas with a Victoria Derby winner this weekend, set to start Observer in this Saturday’s $1 million Group 1 over 1600 metres at Flemington.

Despite how he went about it with Hitotsu, Maher is taking a more conventional approach with Observer, who heads in off a win in the Autumn Stakes at Caulfield on February 7.

That Group 2 is one of two key 1400m Guineas lead-ups run in Melbourne and one that King’s High won the start before his Guineas success.

Dignity Dancer (1999), Dash For Cash (2002), Apache Cat (2006) and Light Fantastic (2008) are the others to have done Autumn Stakes/Guineas double. 

But the Autumn Stakes’ influence has waned in recent years, overtaken by other key local lead-up, the Group 3 C S Hayes Stakes (1400m) at Flemington.

The year after Light Fantastic did the double, Heart Of Dreams won the Guineas off a third placing in the Autumn Stakes, but the Maher-trained Southport Tycoon (2024) is the only Guineas winner to have come through the Autumn Stakes since.

Southport Tycoon aside, the past seven Australian Guineas winners who had their final lead-up run in Victoria came out of the C S Hayes Stakes, including Wandjina (2015), Hey Doc (2017), Grunt (2018) and Alligator Blood (2020), who did the double.

This year’s Guineas field is made up entirely of horses out of either the Autumn Stakes or C S Hayes Stakes.

Observer is joined by the three who filled the other First 4 placings at Caulfield – Planet Red, Victorious Spirit and Onavuitton – while C S Hayes winner Sixties is joined by Romantic Encounter (4th), Officiate (5th), West Of Swindon (6th), Express Class (7th) and Bingi (9th).

The winners of the lead-ups dominate Guineas betting – on Thursday morning Observer was $2.30 and Sixties $2.70 – and are looking to buck the recent trend of upset results.

Eleven of the first 23 editions of the Guineas, which was first run in 1986, were won by the favourite but there have been just three since 2009 and none since Alligator Blood.

His win in 2020 was followed by Lunar Fox’s shock win at $301 – the longest-priced Group 1 winner in Australian racing history – while the past two winners, Southport Tycoon and Feroce, started $19 and $14 respectively.