Can King Of Light add to the impressive three-year-old record in the Northerly?
Arguably the best of the three Group 1 races over The Pinnacles, the Group 1 Northerly Stakes (1800m) brings the best of the older horses and three-year-olds together.
Star three-year-olds taking on the older horses at weight-for-age makes for some of the best racing in my opinion, and Australian racing could do with more of it.
This year's Northerly sees the unbeaten King Of Light attempt to follow in the footsteps of some top three-year-olds before him, and few have been better credentialed.
King Of Light ran to a new peak Timeform rating of 112+ last start to win the Group 2 WA Guineas (1600m), which is the equal highest rating Guineas winner this century, tying with three horses – Arcadia Queen, Megatic and Dr John.
Both of those horses then won the Northerly, Arcadia Queen running to a whopping 121 in very fast time, while Megatic ran to 114.
The evidence is clear – good three-year-olds do very well here, and that logic makes sense, because you typically only get the best one or two juveniles attempt the race.
Since 2000, there have been 29 runners go directly from the WA Guineas to the Northerly for five winners, while the market has expected 3.78.
All this to say that King Of Light profiles very well on Saturday and clearly looks the horse to beat.
It's also worth noting that King Of Light matched the Railway Stakes winner Watch Me Rock, who also ran a Timeform rating of 112, which is rare. It says that the improvement needed is far less than might be typical.
Watch Me Rock is a nice horse, but I think it's pretty clear why Pike chose to ride King Of Light, and his weight-adjusted Timeform rating from the Railway, given he carried 54kg there, comes out well below a few of these.
Western Empire actually tops the rating's sheet given he carried 59kg in the Railway, earning a Timeform rating of 119. That would take a bit of beating, but the Timeform scale isn't perfect in this regard, and he's more a 115-116 commodity these days.
The interesting one is Cosmic Crusader, who devastatingly missed the run in the Railway yet ran an objectively better rating to win the Carbine Club on the same day, coming in at 116 on the Timeform scale.
He's had a bit of mixed preparation but started $1.40 to beat Watch Me Rock first up (albeit with 3kg less) so it's understandable he's shorter again here.
Vivy Air comes over having run to 111 last start in Sydney, backed up by strong late splits to win a good race. It has her in the finish, and 16/1 was probably too big, but single figures is easy enough to pass on.
Even King Of Light is tough to get as short as he is, which is basically the same as what Arcadia Queen started off her Guineas win, which was a better performance on the clock, and not considering her 2kg allowance, effectively meaning she'd run a rating of 116 leading in.
I think this is fairly well priced. King Of Light is the one to beat and Cosmic Crusader and Western Empire are the dangers, in that order, while Watch Me Rock is very easy to be against.
