Toorak Handicap: Joyous back in Melbourne

More Joyous: Will have to be at her best to win the Toorak

Eight time Group 1 winner and darling of Sydney racing More Joyous is back in Melbourne bigger and better than ever. And she will need to be if she is to break another record in the G1 Toorak Handicap over 1600m, according to Head of Timeform Australia, Gary Crispe.

The Gai Waterhouse trained More Joyous has already won the Toorak Handicap once in 2010 under 58kgs setting a weight carrying record for a mare. But on Saturday she is being asked to carry 60kg which is a huge task for any horse let alone a mare.

The Toorak Handicap first run in 1881 has been won on just five occasions by horses carrying 60kgs or more; Hopscotch (61.5gs in 1896), Highland (61.5kgs in 1929), Anonyme (61.5kgs in 1961), Nicopolis (60kgs in 1964) and Tobin Bronze (62.5kgs in 1967). More Joyous already stands alone as a mare for the weight carrying record in the Toorak and she will join a select group of all time winners if she can win this afternoon.
The task is not easy for her as she concedes weight all round to Group 1 performers such as King Mufhasa, winner of the 2011 Toorak Handicap and 10 Group 1 races overall, plus Glass Harmonium multiple Group 1 placed and winner of the 2011 G1 Mackinnon Stakes and fellow mare and three time Group 1 winner Yosei.

Timeform rated 128, More Joyous will need to run at least to that figure to ensure victory on Saturday. Waterhouse has given More Joyous a couple of "soft kills" in Sydney where she never reached her master Timeform rating but provided her the opportunity to tone up for the Toorak and Cox Plate, her main targets in Melbourne this campaign. In fact it could be argued More Joyous needs a hard run today going into the Cox Plate in a fortnight because her two wins in Sydney have been little more than track gallops. To suggest otherwise is ludicrous.

More Joyous trading on Betfair at $2.50n/a does bring with her an unbeaten sequence of six, including four excellent wins in the Autumn comprising the G2 Canterbury Stakes, G1 Queen Of The Turf Stakes, G1 Doncaster Handicap and G1 Queen Elizabeth Stakes plus her two recent wins in Sydney in set weights races against her own sex.

At the weights over 1600m there appears to be little between her and the lighter weighted Solzhenitsyn (Betfair $5.30n/a) and Yosei (Betfair $14.00n/a). Class often prevails and for that reason she has a slight advantage over that pair, but she is unlikely to be a betting proposition at the current odds on offer given the closeness of the Timeform weight adjusted ratings.

Queensland galloper Solzhenitsyn (Timeform rated 113p) is a progressive type who is yet to fulfil his Brisbane winter promise that included two wins over 1600m in group three and listed company. After winning fresh up at Doomben, he contested the G1 Rupert Clarke Stakes and was not disgraced, closing rapidly in the straight to take third place behind Moment Of Change. That run was his first in Melbourne and there is more improvement to come.

On the other hand Yosei (Timeform rated 114) has already won at Group 1 level around Caulfield in the Thousand Guineas and was not far behind More Joyous in the Doncaster Handicap in the Autumn. Yosei meets More Joyous two kilos better for a length defeat, enough to make the closing stages interesting should she run to that performance today.

Other chances are Steps In Time and Glass Harmonium but all eyes will be on More Joyous to collect another Toorak and etch her name into history alongside Umrum (1999/2000), Nicopolis (1963/1964), Desert Breeze (1952/1953) and Saxony (1948/1949) as the only horses to win the feature twice.

While weight is likely to be the pressing issue for the mare, history is likely to be her biggest hurdle in the Cox Plate - just one Toorak winner has completed the Cox Plate double and that was Tobin Bronze in 1967 who carried the heaviest winning weight in a Toorak since 1881.

Visit timeform.com to get your FREE Timeform Card & Ratings for all races at Caulfield on Saturday.