The 2011 Caulfield Cup will be run on Saturday 15 October and there will be a field of 18 runners plus 4 emergencies. There are usually late scratchings so that at least one or two emergencies normally get to run. Nominations for the 2011 BMW Caulfield Cup closed at noon on Tuesday 2 August. There were 236 nominations including last year’ winner Descarado and 22 international nominations from a range of countries. Late nominations closed one week later and there were just two, both from the Anthony Cummings stable. This means the final Caulfield Cup field will be drawn from this pool of 238 horses. Caulfield Cup weights were declared on Tuesday 30 August
Important Dates for the 2011 Caulfield Cup Field
Once a horse has been nominated there are three important dates between now and the Caulfield Cup where the connections have to decide if they are still interested in running their horse. These are known as “declarations” and a fee has to be paid each time, with each fee being larger than the one before. In this way the number of possible runners reduces with each declaration as connections decide their horse is not good enough, or the horse is spelled due to injury. These dates are listed below:
• 2011 Caulfield Cup First Declaration – 12 noon on Tuesday 6 September
• 2011 Caulfield Cup Second Declaration – 12 noon on Tuesday 20 September
• 2011 Caulfield Cup Third Declaration – 12 noon on Tuesday 4 October
Normally there are still over 100 horses after the first declaration, around 70-85 after the second declaration and 40-50 after the third declaration. The final field for the 2011 Caulfield Cup will be announced at 10 am on Tuesday 11 October. This is another important date for the Caulfield Cup field. Check back to our Caulfield Cup page after each of these important dates and see how the field and the odds change.
How the Final Caulfield Cup Field is Selected
To reduce the list of horses who paid up at third declarations down to a total of 22 there are a complex set of rules applied to ballot out horses. Weight is an important component, but horses who have won particular races are exempt from being balloted out, no matter what weight they may have been allocated.
Races Where the Winner is Exempt From the Caulfield Cup Ballot
• 2011 VRC Makybe Diva (Craiglee) Stakes
• 2011 MVRC Dato’Tan Chin Nam (Feehan) Stakes
• 2011 Melbourne Racing Club Underwood Stakes
• 2011 Naturalism Stakes
• 2011 VRC Turnbull Stakes
• 2011 Melbourne Racing Club Herbert Power Stakes
• 2011 Caulfield Stakes
• 2011 Toorak Handicap
• 2011 Mornington Cup
• 2011 Meguro Kinen (Japan)
• 2011 Ebor Handicap (UK)
• Caulfield Cup (any year)
• W.S. Cox Plate (any year)
• Melbourne Cup (any year)
