YES, concedes the trainer Dermot Weld, his runner Profound Beauty has some chance of winning tomorrow's Melbourne Cup. "[But] if the ground is on the soft side I think he [Septimus] would be nearly unbeatable," said the Irishman. "The rest don't matter. He's that good a horse."
Since the recruitment of the so-called foreign raiders turned Australia's iconic race into what the writer Les Carlyon described as "world series staying", some Australian owners and trainers have bemoaned the threat to great Melbourne Cup traditions. Particularly, the difficulty created for local "battlers" by the presence of so many visitors this year - eight, plus New Zealanders.
However, in the 15 years since Weld's iron horse Vintage Crop heralded the race's new international era by churning to victory through a waterlogged track, the raiders have created Melbourne Cup traditions of their own. One of those is that, despite winning with Vintage Crop (1993) and Media Puzzle (2002), Weld is as adept at downplaying the chances of his horses as the Sydney trainer Gai Waterhouse is at selling hers.
So, after an eye-catching gallop by Profound Beauty on Saturday and the engagement of one of Australia's top riders, Glen Boss - famed for his three successive victories on Makybe Diva, the second of those in narrow defiance of Weld's last great Melbourne Cup hope, Vinnie Roe - it was no surprise Weld was far from effusive about his five-year-old mare's chances on his arrival in Melbourne yesterday.
Indeed, after Weld spoke of how it was a year too early for the inexperienced Profound Beauty to contest such a hectic race, how she was not bred to stay the distance and how she was not as good as his previous runners, you wondered why the horse was not on a glue factory conveyor belt rather than the third line of betting for the Melbourne Cup.
But, for the punters who have backed Profound Beauty from $17 into $9, the most revealing fact is that Weld is here. "You don't come unless you have a horse that will represent you well and [for two years] I haven't had a horse that would represent me well," he said of his absence.
It was Weld's success, as much as the prizemoney - $5.5 million tomorrow - and the persuasive powers of the race organisers, that have led to the situation whereby, this year, the international horses are the headline act. "It was inevitable it would develop over the years with modern communications," Weld says. "In [the early] days, to get to Australia, it was the other side of the world and very few people even thought about doing it."
Now, even a more stringent quarantine regime following last year's equine influenza outbreak that saw the foreign horses locked down for three weeks in England and Ireland before their departures has not dampened the enthusiasm of Europe's most powerful stables. "It's a very exciting thing to do, a very worthwhile thing to do, and highly regarded," Weld said.
Another Melbourne Cup tradition pioneered by Weld is the now obligatory attempt by the connections of foreign mudlarks to influence race organisers into preparing a favourable track. This time it has been Coolmore Stud, represented by Tom Magnier, which has flexed its muscles.
Magnier said that the Cup favourite Septimus, the star of Coolmore's three runners, could be scratched if the track was too firm. "We're looking for safe ground," Magnier said. "We're not going to risk him."
Rain was forecast overnight and this evening and, with the track to be watered today, a surface suitable for Septimus seems assured.
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