The Golden Horse Sprint is one of two Grade 1 Handicaps in the country and in order to protect its Grade 1 status the bottom weight has been raised from 52kg to 54kg despite topweight remaining on 60kg.

The WSB Summer Cup had the same change made to it.

The condition will be attractive to the country’s best horses, who tended to avoid the above two races because the 8kg spread gave them too tough a task.

Lesser horses were being given a chance to become Grade 1 winners on two counts; firstly the 8kg handicap spread and secondly the topweight was usually not among the best horses in the country, meaning they had a better chance of being in the handicap (i,e not under sufferance). 

If these 54kg bottom weight conditions had been in place last year it would have been feasible for the top rated sprinter in the country at the time, Rio Querari, who was rated 130, to have lined up.

If he had lined up under these new 54kg bottom weight conditions the older horses would have had to be rated 118 or above to be in the handicap (i.e not under sufferance) and three-year-olds would have had to be rated 120 or above.

However, he was likely not even considered for the race with the Grade 1 wfa Mercury Sprint deemed an easier task.

So instead the highest rated runners were off 125 and there was an 8kg spread, meaning older horses rated 109 and above and three-year-olds rated 111 and above were in the handicap.

That is not to say horses under sufferance can not win as was proved last year when 106 rated three-year-old Battle Force (2.5kg under sufferance) won the race. 

Furthermore, under these new conditions the 107 rated Flying Carpet (3.5kg under sufferance) won the WSB Summer Cup.  

All in all, though, the condition should attract better horses and as the aim of pattern races is to improve the stud book this change has been seen as necessity to preserve the Golden Horse Sprint’s Grade 1 status.

Picture: Battle Force wins last year’s Golden Horse Sprint (Candiese Lenferna Photography).