Consistent import Cepheus will not only need to overcome a shocking barrier and survive Sydney’s forecast furnace-like conditions to win the $2million The Ingham (1600m) at Randwick tomorrow – he will also need to overcome a 131-year weight-carrying record.
Not even colleague Max Presnell was alive when Air Motor lumped nine stone seven pounds, or 60.4kg, to victory in the 1892 edition of the race, which was known then as the Villiers Stakes, and no horse has successfully carried more weight to win the Randwick summer feature since.
What cannot be ignored is the fact that top horses had to concede big weights to lightweight winners over the years. But Cepheus, which has 60kg tomorrow, has proven he can contend with big weights. He won the Alan Brown Stakes in the spring with 59kg, and trainer Matt Dunn was certainly not put off by the heavy impost.
In fact, Dunn could have lived with the handicappers giving Cepheus another kilo to make the 61kg maximum weight in a group 2 quality handicap. Dunn conceded the barrier was a bigger hindrance.
“How many horses have come from barrier 19 to win?” Dunn asked. “He drew a wide gate when he won the Ajax Stakes – he went forward and led – so we need to do that again if we can. When you tell me those stats [about Air Motor] it’s not ideal, but he’s carried big weights and won before. They could have given him more weight if they wanted to. He carried 59kg when he won the Alan Brown, and he’s lumped big weights a fair few times now.
“He’s got a rating of 111, which is probably a group 1 horse’s rating. It’s time we start going to weight-for-age races, but he does carry weight well. That’s one positive. We just need some joy from the gate; being out there, it will come down to how much work he needs to do.”
Well-performed import Cepheus is topweight for The Ingham.Credit: Getty
Cepheus cleared out of the pack and did well to get close to Attractable in last month’s $3million Big Dance, and he meets that horse better at the weights on the weekend. The chestnut won over 2500m at listed level in Europe but has been kept to the shorter trips by Dunn, who has watched his seven-year-old win four races and place seven times since calling Australia home.
A nagging tendon injury has meant Cepheus has avoided being given a decent spell and has instead been kept in work to keep all the right body parts moving.
“The way we train, he’s a sprinter-miler, and he’s never looked like a horse that runs 2500m – he looks like a sprinter,” Dunn said. “He’ll come home after Saturday [to Murwillumbah]. We’ve got boxes with paddocks on them. He’ll go in there, and I’ll take him to the beach every day for two weeks, then we’ll kick him off again.
“I just don’t want him to ever lose all his fitness because that’s the biggest hurdle when you have horses with previous tendon injuries, it’s getting them over the fitness hump.”
Cepheus was scratched from The Gong because of the wet track, something that will not be a problem at Randwick given Sydney’s heatwave.
Chris Waller, fresh from returning from a holiday, will saddle up six runners in The Ingham, including group 2 winner Osipenko, which, like Cepheus, must overcome an awful barrier.
