All Aged Stakes will be Joyous occasion

THE final day of the Sydney Autumn Carnival at Royal Randwick is tomorrow and hasn't it been a great festival.

THE final day of the Sydney Autumn Carnival at Royal Randwick is tomorrow and hasn't it been a great festival.

The highlights are the Group 1s - the Sydney Cup and the All Aged Stakes.

The All Aged is a time-honoured weight-for-age event and always attracts a cracker field.

This year the betting will be dominated by my (actually, it is owned by John Singleton) More Joyous, Gerry Harvey's (and Vinery Stud's) All Too Hard and the Sheik's Epaulette (second to Black Caviar last start). What a field!

More Joyous is an extraordinary mare.

Notwithstanding she is a female and has to give weight to the three-year-olds, All Too Hard and Epaulette, I think punters will make her favourite and, of course, she'll win.

More Joyous has been very unlucky at her two most recent starts. Three weeks ago at Rosehill when odds on, it was tragic to see her beaten.

The start before, champion three-year-old Pierro was able to steal a march on her but she was so gallant in defeat.

Racing's odd couple is Singo and Gerry Harvey. They are close mates but so "opposite" they infuriate each other a lot.

Singo has a boutique band of broodmares and produces great racing stock who are superbly managed as though they are precision dancers. He has had great success.

For Gerry, racing horses is his switch off, his hobby. He must have 60 trainers. Singo constantly publicly pokes fun at what he thinks is Gerry's lack of success (he doesn't mention Gerry won the Group 1 ATC Australian Oaks with Royal Descent last week and Group 1 races with All Too Hard in Melbourne this autumn).

Singo only occasionally goes racing. Gerry is never there. But tomorrow they will be "live and on stage". I understand they will be "miked up" for TVN, the racing channel. Their teasing and baiting each other will be great theatre.

BURNING DESIRE

RON Dufficy, the much-respected commentator, who used to ride for my dad, TJ, fears they will burn the new Randwick grandstand down if Julienas wins the Sydney Cup.

The ATC had better have the fire brigade on full alert, because he'll win.

Tomorrow's 3200m Sydney Cup was always Julienas's campaign target. While he failed in the main lead-up, the Chairman's Handicap, it is easy to excuse him. The race was run on soft going, he led on the fence, where it was softer, and there was a strong headwind. Forget that run.

Because of that failure, punters are likely to get close to double-figure odds. Don't burn the grandstand down, back him and join the payout queue.

LISTED CHANCES

DRIEFONTEIN will be hard to beat in the Listed James Carr Stakes. I'm bringing her back in distance and class for tomorrow's race. She has also had three quiet weeks, with just trotting and cantering. All this will help her enormously.

I know she hasn't won for over a year but she is a great filly and she'll be value odds.

I have two runners in the Champagne Stakes, a Group 1 for two-year-olds - Equator and Shahad.

I prefer Shahad but Nash Rawiller was insistent we enter Equator after he won a city maiden a couple of weeks ago.

After he made the point on the phone, he sent me a follow-up text which said: "He made two runs off good speed. Only good horses do that. I think you should take him straight to the Champagne."

Not a bad tip. Got my attention. And he is riding him.