With spring around the corner and the higher quality meetings about to get under way with a new season starting, it is tempting to think that the future winners of the big carnival features will be making their racetrack reappearance any time in the next month.
In most years that would be true.
But plenty in Britain hope the heroes of Melbourne's big three spring classics - the Caulfield Cup, Cox Plate and the Melbourne Cup itself - might have been in action already.
Not in the early morning mists at Flemington or Caulfield, mind you, but on the rolling downs of Sussex at the Glorious Goodwood meeting, the midsummer highlight of British racing.
Several of those who performed with credit at the festival - such as Sussex Stakes runner up Arod, Goodwood Cup winner Big Orange and the third placegetter in that event, Trip To Paris - are likely to be booked on the flight south carrying plenty of their connections' confidence. As maybe will the Qatar-trained Dubday, who took out a group 3 race over 2400 metres in the early hours of Saturday morning Australian time (see separate story).
Such is the lure of the big Australian prizes these days that any high-quality stayer or good middle-distance horse is as likely to be sent Down Under for a tilt at the Cups or the Plate as he or she is to be routed towards the big end of season races in France, Ireland, Britain or America, where the Breeders Cup is always a major drawcard.
Arod, a tough, flinty front-runner who likes fast ground, is a different kettle of fish, but he shapes as just the type to be very difficult to run down at Moonee Valley in October.
Peter Chapple-Hyam's four-year-old proved his stamina as a younger horse when fourth in the Epsom Derby behind Australia over 2400 metres last season.
But since being dropped back in distance to 1600 metres he has been a revelation, running second in the group 1 Lockinge Stakes at Newbury, and winning good quality contests at Epsom and Newmarket earlier in the summer before his fine effort in the group 1 Sussex Stakes at Goodwood. Arod blazed a trail and it took the high class Solow, one of the world's highest-rated horses, to run down the son of Teofilo to score by half a length .
Chapple Hyam immediately nominated the Plate as a likely target, as did Michael Bell, trainer of Goodwood Cup winner Big Orange.
The lightly raced son of the high-class middle-distance horse Duke Of Marmalade made it two group wins on the spin when he narrowly saw off the Northumberland Plate winner Quest For More in the 3200 metre Group 2 Goodwood Cup, with the Ascot Gold Cup winner Trip to Paris close up in third.
Big Orange had previously scored at big odds in a group race at Newmarket over 2400 metres when he had made all the running under Jamie Spencer, and like Arod he would seem tailor made for the task. He showed he had the stamina for the 3200 metre trip with his Goodwood win, but he had the pace to win over a shorter distance at Newmarket on his reappearance.
Bell, who trained Motivator to win the English Derby a decade ago, was excited by the prospects of a trip to Melbourne.
"Jamie Spencer gave him a masterful ride," said the euphoric trainer in the wake of his success. "Melbourne is very much the plan now that we know he stays the trip and he has got the boot to win a Group Two over a mile and a half and goes on any ground. He ticks a lot of the boxes."
Bell has never had any runners in Australia, but if he needs any travel advice he need only ask his Newmarket neighbour Ed Dunlop, trainer of Trip To Paris.
Dunlop, of course, is the man who prepares the indefatigable Red Cadeaux, three times a runner-up in Australia's greatest race.
The great old globetrotter will be a 10 years old by Australian time when he lines up at Flemington again in November, and he is likely to have Trip To Paris as company as plans to run the improving stayer could very well feature an attempt on the Cup.
Red Cadeaux is currently having a break, but he will be cherry ripe for his fifth attempt on the Cup.
