Pinstriped and Mr Brightside are aiming to become multiple winners of the Memsie Stakes
Pinstriped and Mr Brightside will be out to join some illustrious company when they look to add another Memsie Stakes to their CV this Saturday at Caulfield.
Hall of Famers Heroic, Comic Court and Sunline are among eight dual winners of the race, fellow greats Eurythmic and Ajax won three each, while Lord – the 'King of Caulfield' – was a four-time winner.
Pinstriped and Mr Brightside fought out last year's edition and are back for another crack this year, in what looks a stronger event.
Ten of the 11 in Saturday's field are Group 1 winners, seven of whom own a Racing And Sports peak rating of at least 121, meaning the 2025 edition shapes as the strongest Memsie since it attained Group 1 status in 2013.
Using the Racing And Sports average field-strength rating, the projected figure for this year's race is 125.
The strongest edition run at Group 1 level was the one Mr Brightside won, which rated 123.7, while 2017, when Vega Magic won, returned a figure of 122.8 and 2013, which was famous for Atlantic Jewel's winning return, rated 122.4.
Pinstriped's win came in a version that generated an average rating of 121.5.
The highest-rating Memsie this century was one of the latter ones at Group 2 level, in 2010, when So You Think, Whobegotyou, Shoot Out and Typhoon Tracy were the first four over the line. That led to an average field-strength figure of 126.7.
The edge Pinstriped, who owns a peak figure of 121, could have over some of his more highly-rated rivals this weekend is that he heads in with a run under his belt, as he did last year.
The Enver Jusufovic-trained gelding won the Memsie off a second placing in the Group 2 P B Lawrence Stakes, the race he again resumed in earlier this month, albeit it finishing seventh.
The Memsie had a stint as a race for first-uppers from 2010 to 2016 when all seven winners won off a break of at least two months, but the only first-up winner since was Snapdancer in 2022.
Only two of the 15 winners prior to 2010 won it at their first run off a spell.
Here To Shock, who finished third in the Lawrence Stakes, and Is It Me, who resumed with a fourth placing in Adelaide, or the only other runners in Saturday's race with a run under their belt.
Most of the big names therefore go into Saturday with improvement to come ahead of much bigger goals later in spring, but will they have lengthy hoodoos to overcome in order to claim a major.
Phar Lap, Rising Fast, Sunline, Northerly and Makybe Diva are among 22 horses who used the Memsie as an early stepping stone to Cox Plate success, but a winner of the weight-for-age championship has not come through the Memsie since So You Think.
Makybe Diva won her third Melbourne Cup the year of her Cox Plate victory – 2005, when she also won the Memsie – but it hasn't produced a Cup winner since, while Northerly (2002) is the most recent Caulfield Cup winner to go via the Memsie.
