Sydney’s big wet has continued all week with the beginning of the Championships kicking off on a Heavy 10 at Randwick on Saturday.
Hopeful of the meeting going ahead but looking at the forecast if it is to be postponed, I suspect the meeting will be moved to Monday.
A lot has been made during the week of the Golden Slipper curse as seven of the last eight failed to win another race.
For mine it's a load of rubbish, you don't become slower for crossing the line first at Rosehill, you may however be found out at three when the others catch up.
Fortunately for Fireburn she lines up two weeks after her Slipper with the old 'ahead of the curve' still in her favour (if true).
In the Slipper she returned the fastest L800m, L600m, L400m and L200m of the race and went past her rivals as if they were nailed to the fence.
Overall she recorded the 13th fastest L200m of the meeting, highlighting her strength through the line and emphasized she will have no concerns with the step up in trip on Saturday.
We had been waiting all season for a two-year-old to stand up and be counted and it was Fireburn in the Slipper.
Her Timeform rating of 118 rocketed her to the top of Timeform's leaderboard and it will take a top shelf performance to knock her of her perch.
In the last 20 years if you backed the top rated horse in the Sires' you would have a 45 per cent strike rate.
If you focus solely on horses rated >=116, your strike rate improves to 50 per cent.
Given the likely wet conditions I mark her a smidge better than toss of the coin odds.
The Group 3 Adrian Knox has come up a shade weaker than recent years however that plays into the favour of the James Cummings trained Mamounia.
An impressive winner at Newcastle over 2000m prior to a break, she really caught the eye first up when narrowly beaten over 1300m.
She did miss a run at Kembla when the races were abandoned on the 19/03 but has since been back to the trials and while up sharply in trip, she will be better suited over 2000m.
From a ratings perspective she almost rates top (weight adjusted) off her last start and given she is expected to improve again, she looks hard to beat.
I've marked her favourite and with 7-1 around, she looks a great gamble.
Simon Dinopoulos' Tips:
Race 3 #12 Mamounia @ $8.00
Race 6 #12 Fireburn @ $2.50
