Lloyd Williams predicts Preferment to win Melbourne Cup

LLOYD Williams believes Chris Waller’s Preferment can emulate the feat of his super stayer Efficient and win the Melbourne Cup.

Turnbull Stakes Day at Flemington Racecourse, Race 7 - Turnbull Stakes, Hugh Bowman onboard Preferment wins from Royal Descent. 4th October 2015. Picture: Colleen Petch.

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LLOYD Williams believes Preferment can emulate the feat of his super stayer Efficient and win Tuesday’s Melbourne Cup.

The man who already owns four Melbourne Cups said he could not be more taken by the similarities between the pair.

Efficient won the 2006 Victoria Derby and came out the following year to snare the Cup carrying 54.5kg.

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Preferment won last year’s Derby and will step out as a $10 equal third favourite under 53.5kg.

“And both are sons of Zabeel and Preferment, like Efficient, goes into the Cup as an in-form four-year-old,” Williams said, referring to the recently deceased super sire of stayers.

Williams, who has enjoyed Cup success with Just A Dash (1981), What A Nuisance (1985), Efficient (2007) and Green Moon (2012), said he believed Preferment ticked a lot of the boxes.

“I think Chris (Waller) is a great trainer and Hugh (Bowman) is a great jockey.

“He is well-weighted. He has won the Turnbull Stakes and he has done more than Efficient (going into the Cup). I think his run in the Cox Plate was good because you couldn’t make ground at Moonee Valley that day,” he said.

Williams believes his own trio — The United States, Bondi Beach and Kingfisher — will be competitive but he is struggling to come to terms with the skinny odds offered for Japanese galloper Fame Game.

“He seems under the odds to me,” Williams told Radio Sports National.

“Fame Game has never won a Group 1 race. Our Ivanhowe has won two Group 1 races and he gets a kilo off him,” he pointed out.

Hugh Bowman rides Preferment to victory in the Turnbull Stakes. Picture: Colleen Petch

Williams said he was surprised the way punters and bookmakers had reacted to the way the horse ran home well for sixth in the Caulfield Cup.

“He finished nearly five lengths from the winner. He might well win (the Melbourne Cup), but if you sit good stayers back in a race like that (Caulfield Cup) they will run home well like he did.

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

Williams said he was confident that his trio would acquit itself well in the 3200m feature.

“The United States is in great order. He had light exercise this morning and I am sure he will run a good race. We have Joao Moreira who has never ridden for us before. He will be in the first seven or eight. He settles well, doesn’t pull and if he can get locked away until the straight I am sure he will be running on.

“Kingfisher didn’t travel that well (from the UK) but in the past few weeks he has come up really well. I think he is a great stayer.

“Bondi Beach would be the best stayer I have had. He is not seasoned. He will stride forward and whether he gets over, into a reasonable position and gets into his rhythm means he will need luck.

Despite his excitement about the Cup, which he enticed him to spend multi-millions trying to win over four decades, Williams remains angry that his main contender, Amralah, will not run.

The horse had treatment by the Ballarat Vet Clinic for a neck ailment.

Williams said he understood the medication was to be out of the horse’s system after 13 days, but discovered on Saturday morning before Cup acceptances (18 days after the treatment) that medication was still in the horse’s system.

“Obviously we will be taking legal action,” Williams confirmed.

“We are very fortunate that (chief steward) Terry Bailey was very accommodating making available the analytical lab and found out the horse was positive.

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“We would have been running a horse on Tuesday and had he won or run a place and then proved positive it would have been disastrous.

“He was treated with something that he should not have been treated with by professional people,” he alleged.

The clinic has denied any wrongdoing.

Williams said it was particularly disappointing because his son Nick had encouraged friends into the ownership of the horse with a view to contesting the Cup.

“Nick has some friends in this horse with us and they are terribly disappointed. These people were told 12 months ago that we were preparing this horse for the Melbourne Cup.

“I doubt I will race him again this preparation and until I am sure he is clear of the treatment he has been given. The horse is fine.”

He said he loved the Melbourne Cup.

“I think it is keeping me alive trying to win another one.”

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Originally published as Lloyd Williams predicts Preferment to win Melbourne Cup