Respected sectionals analyst Vince Accardi has serious doubts surrounding the prospects of second-favourite Catchy in the upcoming Group I Caulfield Guineas (1600m).
Despite tasting defeat against her own age and sex in the Thousand Guineas Prelude (1400m) last Sunday, the Hayes' and Dabernig stable have decided to run the Blue Diamond heroine against the boys in the $2 million Caulfield Guineas instead of taking on her own sex in the $500,000 Thousand Guineas on the same day.
BOOKER fights off Catchy and Shoals to land the Thousand Guineas Prelude. #RacingLive pic.twitter.com/llKDK2c5lg
— Racing.com (@Racing) October 1, 2017
Watch Catchy in the Thousand Guineas Prelude
Accardi from Dailysectionals.com.au is of the opinion the daughter of Fastnet Rock would only be making up the numbers in the three-year-old feature.
"She's got no chance," Accardi said.
"The $5.50 about the Caulfield Guineas is crazy. Realistically I think she should be in excess of $10.
"She doesn't have one thing in her favour, other than she'll have less weight than the males, and I'm not a weights man but that would be her only advantage if you were trying to find one.
"At the moment the profile of the horse, if we work on her very best and her last start, she ran right up to her best.
"Generally she is three lengths behind what the current males are doing – this is without the expectation that the males won't improve any further then where they are already.
"So what the challenge is, let's assume that Catchy, and the data isn't indicating this, improves two or three lengths – the others would have to go backwards in order for her to beat them or they would need to have very bad luck or extreme bias.
"Even taking all that into consideration, at this stage Catchy has to be questionable to tackle the males, even the distance – there's nothing in the data to suggest the distance is going to be advantageous, particularly if there is high pressure.
"The data is indicating that if it's a soft run race she has a better chance of performing well but she still has to leap frog those few lengths.
"Generally speaking when I look at the past five years of the Caulfield Guineas the majority of them are run with a fair level of pressure and this would have her very vulnerable."
Accardi was of the opinion that Catchy would be much better suited back against the fillies in the Thousand Guineas.
"Up against her own age and sex she'd be competitive for sure," he said.
"The fillies have the tendency to run with a lot less pressure through the first 600m to 800m and therefore she'll get an opportunity to relax and breathe and give her every chance of running out a mile (1600m).
"The $5.50 is more realistically her price if she was running in the Thousand Guineas. There's not much between them.
"If it was my horse I'd be saying: 'let's target the Thousand Guineas, what are we trying to achieve?"
Catchy is currently $5.50 second-favourite for the Caulfield Guineas with Bet365 behind Royal Symphony at $5.
