Cover image courtesy of The Image Is Everything
The same line has been repeated time and time again in the lead up to Saturday’s G1 Newmarket Handicap; Tentyris (Street Boss {USA}) is going to be tough to beat. But history dictates that the colt has a significant burden to shoulder, and that comes in the form of a 57kg impost from the handicapper.
The weight of history
While the performance of 3-year-olds in the race has generally been good - 40% of winners from the last 40 years have been 3-year-olds - they have rarely been successful with much weight. The 2008 winner Weekend Hussler (Hussonet {USA}) has carried the greatest weight as a successful 3-year-old, winning with 56kg on his back. The same weight given to Home Affairs, brilliant in the G1 Coolmore Stud Stakes in the spring of 2021, dragged the colt back to ninth.
In other modern runs, Growing Empire has lumped one of the greatest weights amongst 3-year-olds when fourth in last year’s edition, carrying 55.5kg - only half a kilo less than the winner Joliestar (Zoustar) - for his trouble.
Growing Empire | Image courtesy of The Image Is Everything
Godolphin victors Cylinder and In Secret (I Am Invincible) carried just 51.5kg to win in their 3-year-old seasons, and Bivouac won with 54kg in 2020, a race where top weight Gytrash (Lope De Vega {Ire}) finished third with 57kg. Fastnet Rock came the closest to winning with 57kg in his length and a quarter second to Alinghi (Encosta De Lago), carrying 53.5kg, in 2005.
Since 2000, only six winners have carried 57kg or greater to victory, the most recent being then 5-year-old Zoutori (Zoustar) in 2021, who carried top weight in a field thick with mares and 3-year-olds. Amish Boy (Star Witness), Prague, and Swats That (Shamus Award) were the best performing 3-year-olds that year, finishing third, fourth, and fifth respectively with 52kg on their backs.
Then 6-year-old Hay List (Statue Of Liberty {USA}) carried the greatest burden to victory this millennium in 2012 when allotted 58.5kg, and he beat Buffering (Mossman) merely a head when the latter carried four kilos less.
Hay List | Image courtesy of Sportpix
The spread of the weights also poses a significant challenge. It isn’t like Tentyris has never carried the weight before; in the Listed Gothic Stakes in the spring, the colt carried a top weight of 58.5kg to a half-length victory over Raging Force (Cosmic Force) - but the trick is that he was only carrying three and a half kilos more than the lightweight of the field, Sheza Alibi (Saxon Warrior {Jpn}).
His set weight in the Coolmore and weight-for-age allocation in the G1 Black Caviar Lightning were much kinder on the colt than Saturday’s impost, where he will carry seven kilos more than fellow 3-year-olds Wodeton (Wootton Bassett {GB}) and Pallaton (Wootton Bassett {GB}). With only one horse - veteran Group 1 winner Baraqiel (Snitzel) - assigned more before scratching on Friday, it’s a tough task to take up to Tentyris.
The weighted advantage
Before scratching, Baraqiel's co-trainer Will Larkin had made a declaration to TTR; "I'd say she (My Gladiola) is probably the one I'm scared of the most, and that's including Tentyris as well."
He might not be the only one of that opinion.
My Gladiola (I Am Invincible) arrives at the event with 50.5kg allotted to her, although Racing Australia's final fields indicate she may carry 51.5kg with Craig Williams aboard, unable to make the lighter weight.
“We’re under no illusions that he (Tentyris) is a very, very good horse and he’s going to be extremely hard to beat,” the filly’s trainer John McArdle told Racing.com this week. And yet, the daughter of Group 2-winning Villa Verde (Not A Single Doubt), who was third in the G1 Galaxy Handicap, has gotten the closest to catching the star colt on more than one occasion.
“We get six kilos off him. Our filly gets in with no weight, and it is a massive weight differential.”
"Our filly gets in with no weight, and it is a massive weight differential." - John McArdle
My Gladiola beat Tentyris a length and a half in the G2 Danehill Stakes in the spring, where she ran second by a whisker to Mcgaw (I Am Immortal). Since then, they had met twice more at Flemington - both at Group 1 level - and she has put the work in to run agonising seconds each time.
My Gladiola | Image courtesy of The Image Is Everything
In the Lightning, she briefly looked the winner before the colt pulled away to a three-quarter-length victory - on that occasion, she only carried a kilo and a half less than him.
“Craig coming to have a feel of her on Tuesday morning was vitally important,” McArdle said. “If you can get her to relax and switch off, she’s got a very good turn of foot. We’re confident that, with that weight, we’re going in with a very live chance.”
You have to be in it to win
Another beneficiary of the weight scale is Bjorn Baker’s Disneck (Trapeze Artist); with a benchmark just shy of 100, the 5-year-old will carry 52kg, which is three kilos less than the weight he carried to win the G3 Standish Handicap over the same track and distance two starts ago.
It is significant for Disneck in that he hasn’t carried lighter than 54kg in the past 12 months. Last February, he carried 53kg to fourth in the G3 Southern Cross Stakes - his first step back into stakes grade since his juvenile year.
“There’s the old theory that you’ve got to be in it to win it,” Baker told Racing.com on Friday. “And one thing about Disneck is that he’s proven down the straight. He’s had a couple of good looks at it. He loves to get cover so he’s drawn well (in barrier eight) to do little to no work. He gets in with a light weight, and he’s fit and well.”
"There’s the old theory that you’ve got to be in it to win it, and one thing about Disneck is that he’s proven down the straight." - Bjorn Baker
Baker can forgive the gelding’s last start beating in the G3 JRA Plate at Rosehill, where he went down by three lengths to Willaidow (Shamus Award), who was carrying just 500 grams more.
Disneck | Image courtesy of Racing Photos
“Last time (when unplaced at Rosehill), the race wasn’t run to suit at all,” Bake said. “His run was probably better than it looks and since then we’ve been happy with him. The key with him is to do nothing on him early and save him for late.”
Several of the field are known for their strong finishes, so Baker will be hoping that the five kilo difference between Disneck and Tentyris will be sufficient to drive a wedge between them in that final furlong.
A weight he can handle
Tentyris’s co-trainer Sam Freedman is confident that the weight will not be a problem for his stable star.
“The weight conversation has become more a function for form analysts and people on the outside to talk about the race, but when you are working with horses and around them every day, it’s different,” he said. “You can’t argue that weight doesn't have some impact because that’s simple maths, but I think, for a horse that is 520kg, another seven kilos isn’t the end of the world.”
"I think, for a horse that is 520kg, another seven kilos isn’t the end of the world." - Sam Freedman
What else matters for Freedman is the form in which that weight comes.
“You are also looking at dead weight versus living, moving weight,” he said. “Riders who weigh more, or closer to the allotted weight, that’s weight that is moving. I don’t think that is as significant as what everyone seems to think.
“For example, Craig Williams is expected to ride My Gladiola at 50.5kg, 51.5kg and then he is riding Tom Kitten in the All Star Mile at 59kg. Mathematically, that’s some eight kilos of dead weight.
Sam Freedman | Image courtesy of The Image Is Everything
“Whereas Mark Zahra, who’s on Tentyris, will be riding almost bang on his race weight. There probably won't be any dead weight at all. So I'd argue that the amount of dead weight is more significant than the total weight of a rider.”
And again, the weight itself isn’t brand new - it was the same weight Tentyris carried down the straight in the Coolmore, after all.
“He’s carried 57kg to the races plenty of times, and he has run good times doing so,” said Freedman. “He won the Coolmore in a very fast time.”
“He’s (Tentyris) carried 57kg to the races plenty of times, and he has run good times doing so, He won the Coolmore in a very fast time.” - Sam Freedman
What matters more in Freedman’s eyes is the shape of the race, and where the various threats will loom from.
“It's a different dynamic with how the race will shape up,” he said. “Looking at the race on paper, it doesn't appear to have a lot of speed early on. I still think if he's in the right spot at the right time, he will be very hard to beat. It's just getting yourself into the right spot at the right time that's going to be the challenge - but I have faith in the jockey to sort that out.”
"It's just getting yourself into the right spot at the right time that's going to be the challenge - but I have faith in the jockey (Mark Zahra) to sort that out." - Sam Freedman
What Freedman perceives as the main threats come from some less obvious places.
“Angel Capital was beaten two lengths by Ka Ying Rising in the Everest, and I think from that run, he would be a proper chance in the race,” he said. “He’s been hit with a penalty due to the good races he has run, but he is a realistic chance. Caballus could be a threat, given the way he puts himself on the speed, and My Gladiola is not without a shot.”
Tentyris | Image courtesy of The Image Is Everything
But a narrow shot is what Freedman believes it to be, for all of them.
“I've got good confidence in our horse going back to the 1200 metres,” he said. “He's just getting stronger and stronger. We know he can run time down the straight carrying that weight, he just has to do it again.”
