Young buck Extreme Choice beating the old guns in Moir Stakes can only be good for game

LOYALTIES to Buffering and Chautauqua aside, how good was it to see three-year-old Extreme Choice take on the older horses and come up trumps in the Moir Stakes?

Extreme Choice’s success might spark a turnaround after a poor couple of years for the classic generation against older horses. Picture: Colleen Petch

LOYALTIES to champs Buffering and Chautauqua aside, how good was it to see three-year-old Extreme Choice take on the older horses and come up trumps in last Friday’s Moir Stakes?

The Mick Price-trained colt belied a poor recent trend for his age group when he came from the clouds to lower the colours of Australia’s best sprinters.

Unfortunately, a young buck beating the older horses doesn’t happen as often now as it did previously.

Three-year-olds don’t have to take on WFA company to secure their value because they have had races elevated to Group 1 status in the safety of their own age group.

The rise of the Golden Rose means it is now rare for a youngster to tackle the Sir Rupert Clarke, a race where some of the most memorable winners were three-year-olds like Our Maizcay, Encosta De Lago, Testa Rossa and Exceed And Excel.

Similarly, in Melbourne Cup week the Coolmore Stud Stakes — like the Golden Rose — has become a great race in its own right, but that has come at the expense of three-year-olds tackling older sprinters in the WFA Darley Classic, a race previously won by outstanding three-year-olds like Fastnet Rock, Choisir, Al Mansour and Gold Brose.

Craig Newitt and Extreme Choice combine to take out the Group 1 Moir Stakes. Picture: Getty Images

Hopefully Extreme Choice’s success might spark a turnaround, after a poor couple of years for the classic generation against older horses.

Three-year-olds won just six Group 1 WFA races from 96 attempts in the past three seasons.

In 2014-15, they failed to strike a single blow (from 31 runners). Last season, Perfect Reflection, Holler and English were the lone success stories from 32 runners.

Timeform’s Australian compiler Gary Crispe said on two-year-old ratings, this crop was second only to the Pierro-All Too Hard year in terms of quality at the top end in modern times.

Pierro and co went on to confirm the juvenile rating by winning nine Group 1 WFA races at three in the 2012-13 season.

Extreme Choice before his Moir Stakes assignment. Picture: Getty Images

While the Coolmore Stud Stakes looks a salivating contest with Extreme Choice, Astern, Star Turn, Flying Artie and Capitalist all potential runners, Crispe suggests one or two should change course to tackle Chautauqua and co a week later.

“Some trainers should look at going to the Darley Classic because only one of them can win the Coolmore and I think on the current numbers a three-year-old would probably win that (WFA) race,” Crispe said.

Interestingly, while the recent level of success for three-year-olds in Australian Group 1 races has disintegrated, the European Pattern Committee has made moves to take away some of the advantage three-year-olds have under the WFA scale and from 2017 they will be 1.5kg worse off in some races.

Originally published as Young buck Extreme Choice beating the old guns in Moir Stakes can only be good for game