Tancred Stakes Tips & Preview 2023

Looking for Tancred Stakes tips and best bets? We dissect times and form to find the winner of the 2023 Tancred Stakes at Rosehill.

TANCRED STAKES BETTING SNAPSHOT

It is the 2022 Melbourne Cup (3200m) winner, Gold Trip, that heads the market with Palmerbet at the $4.20, just ahead of Montefilia at $5. Cleveland comes over from Ireland and wears the Lloyd Williams colours. He is a $7 shot, while Knights Order, is the other under double figure odds at $9.

Vow And Declare comes into this with some promising form and is at $10, while Arapaho ($11), Sir Lucan ($12), King Frankel ($13) and Stockman ($15) are also in the mix. Explosive Jack heads the rest of the field at the $26.

TANCRED STAKES FORM ANALYSIS

Montefilia is on the short back-up after finishing runner-up behind Dubai Honour in the Ranvet Stakes (2000m). She was no match for the winner and was beaten four lengths to go 4.2 lengths faster than standard benchmark. At her third run in the spring she placed 4th in the Caulfield Cup (2400m), producing the fastest last 200m. She had a chequered run prior to the last furlong that day and might have finished closer.

Gold Trip landed in front of Montefilia as the runner-up horse in the Caulfield Cup. He was then unplaced in the Cox Plate (2040m) before his big triumph in the Melbourne Cup (3200m). He comes into this third up and was 5th in the Ranvet Stakes last weekend.

Six horses come out of the Sky High Stakes (2000m) that was taken out by Protagonist at Rosehill a fortnight ago. They are King Frankel (4th), Stockman (5th), Knights Order (6th), Alegron (7th), Benaud (9th) and Selino (12th).

King Frankel settled just forward of midfield and was solid in the run home to go 5.5 lengths faster than standard benchmark. Knights Order led before fading late. Not sure of the form out of this race and the quintet will need to show some sharp improvement.

Vow And Declare comes in with the best last start benchmark figures any runner, having gone 13.9 lengths faster than standard benchmark when runner-up in the Australian Cup Prelude (2000m) behinds Right You Are. He led them up into the straight and stuck on very well.

Cleveland is an interesting runner and hails from the Joseph O’Brien stable out of Kilkenny in Ireland. He might be better over longer distances but is impossible to rule out based on the performance of another Northern Hemisphere raider, Dubai Honour, last weekend.

The lightly raced five-year-old was runner-up in the Group 3 Ballyroan Stakes (2414) at Leopardstown two starts ago and has since finished 6th of 30 runners at the Curragh. Hard to line up his form and his time over the 2400m reads as slower than what the locals have been producing but he is hard to ignore nonetheless.

Arapaho and Explosive Jack are a couple of others to consider and provided the quinella in the recent Canberra Cup. The winner went 3.9 lengths slower than standard benchmark in that race, which was off a very slow early tempo.

TANCRED STAKES TIPS AND BEST BETS

He has one just once since the 2019 Melbourne Cup but I am willing to roll the dice on Vow And Declare. His victory came last spring in the Zipping Classic (2400m) at Caulfield and the Danny O’Brien-trained galloper went 13 lengths faster than standard to take out that Group 2. Third up last time he produced a similar figure when 5th at Flemington in the Bart Cummings (2510m) beaten just over a length by Lunar Flare. He looks to have come back in excellent order and won’t be too far away in the run with Knights Order to lead them up. Montefilia should be around the mark and it is hard to ignore Gold Trip and Cleveland but the double figures for Vow And Declare present appeal.