$2m bonus for Cox Plate 2019 winner designed to attract overseas stars

The Moonee Valley Racing Club has announced an additional $2m potential bonus to entice star horses from around the world to enter and compete in the 2019 Ladbrokes Cox Plate. This additional prize money will be on offer to winners of selected races around the world that go on to win this year’s Cox Plate. The winner ordinarily bags a cool $3m for winning the event, but the Moonee Valley Racing Club is clearly keen on promoting the race worldwide and encouraging the world’s best middle-distance turf horses to compete.

The racecourse has opted to partner with a string of overseas racecourses that are staging their own Group 1 middle-distance weight-for-age races; the winners of these will be eligible for the $2m bonus pot if they go on to enter and win the W.S. Cox Plate in October. Last month, the first overseas race to be included for eligibility of the $2m Cox Plate bonus pot was the JRA Group 1 Takarazuka Kinen. It was the last Spring Group 1 race in Japan, with the winner going on to pocket $2m and the chance to win an additional $5m by winning Melbourne’s Cox Plate.

Lucrative overseas bonuses will broaden the appeal of the Cox Plate

Don Casboult, chairman of the Moonee Valley Racing Club, has expressed his delight at the chance to offer a lucrative bonus to eligible horse owners overseas. Casboult said that the Club was looking forward to “crowning a new champion” after the “record-breaking achievements” of quadruple-Cox-Plate-winner, Winx. The Cox Plate International Bonus augments the Club’s existing approach of extending overseas invitations, which, according to Casboult, was “introduced in 2012”. The existing strategy sees the Club sending open invites to the “best performed horses”.

The overwhelming favorite to win the 2019 Cox Plate is Mystic Journey, as the event is being held for the first time in five years without four-time champion, Winx (following its retirement after Sydney’s autumn carnival). The Ladbrokes Cox Plate Boost bonus of $1m has also been made available to Victoria’s winners of 13 high-profile feature races, two of which have already been won by Mystic Journey: the Australian Guineas and the All-Star Mile. This means that Mystic Journey’s connections will have a lucrative $4m purse up for grabs at this year’s Cox Plate.

Mystic Journey begins her spring runs, to peak in October

Certainly, Mystic Journey is the number-one filly on the lips of most tipsters and punters with half an eye on the Cox Plate. The Tasmanian’s spring start leading into October was recently held back, with connections pulling her out of the Groupe 3 Bletchingly Stakes due to the ground being too soft. Up to 20mm of rain were forecast for the day before the race and overnight, leading the Caulfield course to be downgraded to soft (6)—trainer Adam Trinder was only prepared to allow her to race at soft (5).

Trinder’s plan to run Mystic Journey in the Bletchingly Stakes was to enable her spring runs to be sufficiently spaced, giving her plenty of time to recover and reach peak condition in time for a tilt at the Cox Plate. It now appears that the filly’s first appearance this spring will come at the Group 2 PB Lawrence Stakes in mid-August, followed by a Group 1 ride in the Memsie Stakes at Caulfield just a fortnight later. Mystic Journey’s owner, Wayne Roser, admitted that connections have all agreed that running her in handicaps would be nonsensical given that “her rating would get her too much weight”.

Nevertheless, Trinder believes Mystic Journey will justify her early favoritism for the 2019 Cox Plate, as punters will see a more physically-developed filly than last season. Trinder confirmed that she has “definitely thickened out”, and all reports from her stable suggest that she has “developed physically quite significantly”. Things certainly seem to be positive from her camp, despite the disappointment in the delay of her racing this spring.

Will Godolphin be celebrating at Moonee Valley this year?

Mystic Journey’s closest challenger for the Cox Plate, in the eyes of the bookies, is the Godolphin-owned stayer, Avilius. This in-form horse has long been targeted for this year’s Cox Plate by Godolphin, with trainer James Cummings reiterating that he wouldn’t go down the Group 1 Melbourne Cup path and would instead be nurtured for the 2040m Cox Plate.

The second favorite didn’t enjoy the best of starts to his spring runs, with an unplaced finish in a trial at Rosehill earlier this month. However, trainer Cummings insisted nothing should be read into this result, given that jockey Kerrin McEvoy was under orders to not ask Avilius to extend at any point in the race (in which he eventually finished second last). Cummings insisted that the plan was to “see the best of him later on in October”, in time for the Cox Plate.

The reason why favoritism looks unlikely for Avilius in this year’s Cox Plate is due to his suspect showing around The Valley track last time out. Cummings admitted that Avilius “didn’t really handle” the circuit well, but he is hopeful that the field will be somewhat weaker for this year’s event, particularly without the untouchable Winx. Nevertheless, New Zealand-bred Beauty Generation is another thoroughbred that should never be discounted in this year’s Cox Plate. Best-known for his achievements on Hong Kong’s racetracks, Beauty Generation is another of the world’s top-rated horses that could excel now that Winx is out of the equation.

Don’t discount the world’s highest-rated racehorse

In fact, Beauty Generation became the world’s highest-rated active racehorse after winning the Group 1 FWD Champions Mile at Sha Tin. The six-year-old comfortably won by a length-and-a-half, leaving the racing world purring. His success in April secured a ninth successive win, and last season he became one of only four horses in history to win the Hong Kong Mile and Champions Mile “double” in the same year. With such a high international rating of 127, it would be foolhardy to rule him out of being involved at the business end of this year’s Cox Plate.