Trainer Roger James tackles tricky dilemma for 2024 Melbourne Cup contender Mark Twain
A golden ticket into the Melbourne Cup doesn’t guarantee a golden path into the race that stops a nation – as New Zealand trainer Roger James is finding out with top fancy Mark Twain.
A golden ticket into the Melbourne Cup doesn’t guarantee a golden path into the race that stops a nation – as New Zealand trainer Roger James is finding out with top fancy Mark Twain.
A son of 2009 Melbourne Cup winner Shocking, Mark Twain qualified for this year’s $7.75m Group 1 feature with an impressive victory in the Roy Higgins Quality (2600m) at Flemington in March.
Rated a 99-benchmark after winning the Roy Higgins, Mark Twain will have the advantage of a feather weight on the first Tuesday in November … but that low rating in turn presents challenges when it comes to mapping out a schedule leading into the Cup.
Instead of risking being balloted out of key Group 1s such as the Makybe Diva and Turnbull Stakes, James may instead target country cups to ensure the rising five-year-old gets enough mileage into his legs.
“Everybody thinks it’s easy and I thought all we have to do is have him there on the day,” James said during the New Zealand leg of the 2024 Melbourne Cup Tour.
Mark Twain has just won a golden ticket into the 2024 Lexus Melbourne Cup, after storming home in the Lexus Roy Higgins.
— Victoria Racing Club (@FlemingtonVRC) March 30, 2024
🎥 @7HorseRacing#AustralianCuppic.twitter.com/Ky7hdUdFrh
• NZ raider Mark Twain books Melbourne Cup berth
“In actual fact, with his rating as low as it is, last year he wouldn’t have made a couple of the fields we’ve picked out as lead up runs.
“We’re going to have to (plan) as the season goes on a little bit and maybe go to a country cup to assure we’re going to get some mileage into him, instead of waiting for a Turnbull or a Makybe Diva, or one of those races and risk not making a cut.”
James, who trains in partnership with Robert Wellwood, said Mark Twain would not run at home before the trip to Melbourne.
“Our springs here can be dogged by wet weather so better for him to be over there,” James said.
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Syndicated by OTI Racing, Mark Twain has now been in work at James’s Kingsclere Stables, Cambridge, for a month after a six-week break.
“He developed significantly during his spell, he’s right where we want him at this stage,” James said.
“He’s a little bit stronger I feel, I told (OTI boss) Terry (Henderson) 18 months ago he (Mark Twain) could be a Melbourne Cup horse as a six-year-old but we got the golden ticket and we’re going to be there at five.
“From day one, I said to Terry he’s the epitome of an old fashioned New Zealand stayer … and he’s developed into very much that sort of horse.”
"You dream of having Melbourne Cup runners as a little boy" @RobertWellwood is still on Cloud 9 after last Saturday with the efforts of Orchestral and Mark Twain! 🤩
— Trackside NZ (@TracksideNZ) April 3, 2024
Full update here: https://t.co/VxcPPoZkMGpic.twitter.com/FnF0XV2eGf
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Mark Twain is $21 in TAB’s pre-nominations Melbourne Cup market which is headed by a Ciaron Maher’s Sydney Cup-winner Circle Of Fire ($11) and European stayer Middle Earth ($13).
Mark Twain placed third at 3200m in the Auckland Cup before his Roy Higgins victory, so the two miles poses few fears for James.
“I’m confident he’ll get the two mile and probably that puts him top third,” James said.
“We know there’s a lot of luck in running involved, a race of that calibre, draws, everything comes into it.
“The ride, but he should get in with a nice weight.”
Meanwhile, James has a light spring slated for star filly Orchestral, a Group 1 winner in both NZ and Sydney.
Orchestral won five of seven starts last campaign but James – mindful of her busy autumn – said a Cox Plate mission was unlikely ahead of discussions with owners on a spring program.
Orchestral is currently rated a $15 chance with TAB for the Cox Plate.
— with Daniel Sankey
Originally published as Trainer Roger James tackles tricky dilemma for 2024 Melbourne Cup contender Mark Twain
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