Ciaron Maher’s Melbourne Cup runners ranked

Ciaron Maher Racing will saddle up four runners in the 2024 Melbourne Cup (3200m).

The stable won the famous race in 2022 with Gold Trip and will look to make it two in three years on Tuesday at Flemington.

Maher’s assistant trainer, Jack Turnbull, has assessed the stable’s four gallopers - Interpretation, Okita Soushi, Circle Of Fire and Saint George.

He ranked them in order of their winning chances.

“We’ve got Interpretation, Okita Soushi, Circle Of Fire and Saint George,” Turnbull said on SENTrack’s Giddy Up.

“Clearly the form horse is Okita Soushi. He’s got 51kg with Jamie Kah.

“Closely followed by Interpretation. He was good last start in the Geelong Cup. They both love fast ground, they’re both fit, they’ve got no weight and they get two miles which is a big tick.

“Circle Of Fire is a Group 1 two-miler but he has just been mixing his form. If he can draw a barrier he may be ridden just a touch closer.

“He might be midfield rather than second half and you know he’s going to see out the distance. He does need to put his best foot forward.”

Saint George has not quite lived up to expectations since arriving in Australia in the middle of the year, unplaced in four starts in Melbourne.

But Turnbull is still expecting the five-year-old to come good down under and was buoyed by his last run when fifth in the Moonee Valley Gold Cup behind stablemate Okita Soushi on October 25.

“He was much better last start,” Turnbull said of Saint George.

“We’ve played around with him and we were a bit harder on him leading into that run. He definitely responded well to that.

“Prior to the spring he was sort of the boom stayer with the form lines behind him. He will get back to that and show that eventually.

“It hasn’t quite worked out to date but he’s got the makings of a top-class stayer, it’s just a matter of time.”

Okita Soushi, who will be ridden by Jamie Kah out of barrier 10, is the shortest of the four Maher runners, currently priced at $12 with Sportsbet.

Interpretation, who finished sixth in last year’s Cup, will be ridden by Teo Nugent from barrier 14. He is $20.

Saint George will jump from 9 underneath Tyler Schiller and is $26 right now.

Sydney Cup winner Circle Of Fire, at $34, gets the winning jockey of the last two Cups, Mark Zahra. They will jump from the widest barrier, 24.

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