Guns ablazin’ – history beckons

Shoot Out has started his spring campaign with a bang, but will it bust?

The Queenslander brilliantly won the Group 3 Bletchingly Stakes (1200m, Caulfield) on July 31 and Saturday’s Group 2 Liston Stakes (WFA, 1400m) at Caulfield.

And while the accolades are flowing for the four-year-old, there seems to be a groundswell of opinion, especially from some renowned horsemen that trainer John Wallace has Shoot Out up and firing too early in the campaign to be a factor at the business end  of the spring, at Cox Plate time late in October.

Wallace (pictured with Shoot Out at Caulfield) scoffs at the suggestion, citing the fact that those who are making these claims don’t know his horse, or his training methods. “I am just playing with this horse at the moment, he has a lot of improvement in him,” he said.

History hasn’t been kind to horses who win the Liston Stakes – not one Liston winner has gone on to win a Melbourne Cup. In fact, the last horse to win the Cup after competing in the Liston earlier in the spring was Subzero (1992).

But when it comes to Liston Stakes winners and the Cox Plate, the pendulum swings slightly in Shoot Out’s favour.

There have been three Liston-Cox Plate winners – So Called (1978), Tauto (1971) and Tobin Bronze (1966). Until Maldivian in 2008, the previous Cox Plate winner to compete in the Liston was Better Loosen Up in 1990.

Wallace is no fool. He’s mapped out a program that fits snugly with the path followed by Maldivian, who won the Cox Plate at his seventh run in the campaign – after a barrier trial, the Mark Kavanagh-trained gelding kicked off his preparation with an excellent third behind Light Fantastic and Weekend Hussler in the Liston Stakes.

This is Maldivian’s 2008 seven-race spring campaign:

1. G2 Liston Stakes (1400m, Caulfield) – third behind Light Fantastic.
2. G2 Memsie Stakes (1400m, Caulfield) – second behind Weekend Hussler.
3. G2 Dato Tan Chim Nam Stakes (1600m, Moonee Valley) – fourth behind Guillotine.
4. G1 Underwood Stakes (1800m, Caulfield) – fourth behind Weekend Hussler.
5. G1 Turnbull Stakes (2000m, Flemington) – sixth behind Littorio.
6. G1 Caulfield Cup (2400m, Caulfield) – ninth behind All The Good.
7. G1 Cox Plate (2040m, Moonee Valley – defeated Zipping and Samantha Miss.

Wallace’s only deviation from that plan is to target the weight-for-age Group 1 Yalumba Stakes (2000m, Caulfield) – two weeks before the Cox Plate – in preference to the Caulfield Cup, run under handicap conditions a week before the Cox Plate.

“I have not discounted running him in the Caulfield Cup,” Wallace said on Sunday. “It remains an option.”

If that’s the case, Wallace ticks the necessary box that Shoot Out needs on his Melbourne Cup CV – a run over at least 2400 metres in a lead-up race.

Only the great Makybe Diva (2005), who won the Cox Plate before winning the Cup, and Empire Rose (1988) are modern horses able to win the 3200m handicap off a preparation of races that didn’t include a start of 2400 metres or further.

Already Shoot Out is aiming to create a bit of history as the only horse to win a Bletchingly Stakes, Liston Stakes and Memsie Stakes in the one campaign.

If he can go through this spring undefeated, then his record will rival one of the greats in Rising Fast, who dominated the 1954 spring carnival; and Wallace will be declared a genius.

Footnote: In 1954, Rising Fast won: Feehan Stakes (now the Dato Tan Chin Nam), Turnbull Stakes, Caulfield Stakes, Caulfield Cup, Cox Plate, Mackinnon Stakes and Melbourne Cup. He capped it off with a win in the C.B. Fisher Plate on the final day of the Flemington carnival.

Photo: Colin Bull.