NO PERTH CUP FOR GUYNO

Stable star GUYNO has been officially scratched from the Perth Cup and will not be taking his place. Instead the horse will be having a short freshen up after the Cox Stakes in which time we will look at a possible short Autumn campaign with him.

Guyno will have his last start for this campaign when he starts in the $200,000 CB COX Stakes on Wednesday at Ascot and I will monitor him closely over the next week or two before we decide on his immediate future. While on the subject of the COX Stakes being run on Wednesday...... can anyone give me one good logical reason why? I know I am fairly old fashion or maybe I have just been around for a fair while and can still recall when the race was always run on Boxing day along with the Derby and the Karrakatta Plate.

Over the years, Boxing day has lost its gloss as a popular city race day but what on earth was wrong with running the COX next Saturday, December 22nd when it would give the Kingston Town Classic horses more time to get over their runs and would provide an ideal final hit out for Cup horses over the more suitable distance of 2400m. Why the race is run at a lowly mid week meeting where the attendances are poor and the punters are not yet officially into holiday mode is one of those quirky programming anomalies which has me baffled. I would love it if someone could actually give me the reason if there is one! Either way it is not going to effect me greatly as we are not heading to the Cup and my horse has done a treat since his race last weekend.