Melbourne Cup: Fame Game drifts in price as punters chase value

ASTUTE owner Lloyd Williams on Monday joined the list of those questioning Fame Game’s right to be a short-priced Melbourne Cup favourite.

ASTUTE owner Lloyd Williams on Monday joined the list of those questioning Fame Game’s right to be a short-priced Melbourne Cup favourite, as the usual Cup eve betting chaos failed to reveal a definitive pattern.

Suggestions that Fame Game could start as short as So You Think (third at $3 in 2010) were quashed on Monday as the Japanese stayer went on the drift.

At the Call of the Card on Monday he was bet at $5 before being wound in slightly to $4.80.

UBET had him at $4.60 on Monday night with most anticipating better odds would be available on Tuesday.

“He will get out because the once-a-year punters aren’t interested in backing a horse that short unless they have some connection to it,” UBET’s Gerard Daffy said.

“With the most recent Melbourne Cup shortie, So You Think, he was an established champion and was trained by Bart Cummings.

“And before him, Makybe Diva was a Cup winner when she won as favourite in 2004 and then a public idol by the time she was going for her third a year later.

“Fame Game is just another horse to these people and he was too short when he got into less than $4.”

Williams has won the Cup four times and today has The United States, Bondi Beach and Kingfisher running for him.

He says Bondi Beach could be the best stayer he has owned, but feels he may still be too inexperienced to win a Cup.

Instead, he thinks Chris Waller’s Preferment is the right horse for the race, reminding him of his 2007 winner Efficient, who was also a son of Zabeel that was beaten in the Cox Plate.

As for Fame Game, Williams wasn’t as impressed as others with what he saw at Caulfield.

“Fame Game has never won a Group 1 and he finished nearly five lengths from the winner (in the Caulfield Cup). He might well win, but if you sit good stayers back in a race like that they will run home well like he did,” Williams told RSN

“I think it should be 5/1 ($6) the field.”

Williams’ opinion is echoed by famed bookmaker Michael Sullivan.

“Fame Game did touch $5 and is back into $4.80 which I think is ridiculously short,’’ Sullivan said.

“Fame Game was a very good run in the Caulfield Cup but there were about six very good runs, including the second and third placed Trip To Paris and Our Ivanhowe.

“Everyone has just been too focused on Fame Game.”

Action at the call of the card included Tom Waterhouse backing rank outsider Sertorius to win $5 million.

Trip To Paris was backed to win $250,000 in a single wager, as was Our Ivanhowe.

MELBOURNE CUP

UBET TOP 10

WIN PLACE

FAME GAME 4.60 1.90

TRIP TO PARIS 7.50 2.65

PREFERMENT 9.50 3.15

MAX DYNAMITE 12.00 3.75

CRITERION 16.00 4.80

ALMOONQITH 16.00 4.80

WHO SHOT THEBARMAN 18.00 5.25

OUR IVANHOWE 20.00 5.75

THE UNITED STATES 21.00 6.00

BONDI BEACH 23.00 6.50

Originally published as Melbourne Cup: Fame Game drifts in price as punters chase value