Monday, 22 January 2024: One of the quietest days on the Australian racing calendar- is there anything that can progress through the Autumn?

JUNGLE JIM winning the VRC Super Saturday, 9 March at Flemington in Australia.

I have no idea how many days of the 364 Australia race on that there is only benchmark racing, not even open class events, but I imagine there wouldn't be too many.

Saturday was one of them, and that's fine. Racing, like all sport, needs an 'off season', to build excitement for the big days and to encourage competition on those days. Diluting our feature races with so many options only detracts from the best facing the best, which is what all sport thrives off.

Nevertheless, we saw some nice performances from a few horses that put their hand up to progress to some of the better races as the racing starts to heat up, which by the way, is this week with Group racing on both Friday and Saturday in Melbourne.

One horse, in Melbourne, that may look to be a factor in what can often be some fairly thin listed/group staying races is Aramco , who won impressively over 2000m. It was only a benchmark 70, and he admittedly got everything in his favour, but he has only had six starts and always shown good talent.

A 5.5 length winner on debut, he's by Sea The Moon , a son of Sea The Stars , who also sired Caulfield Cup winner Durston .

A Timeform rating of 97 still has many lengths to make up to even be a factor in a listed race but it's a good starting point so early and he should progress through the grades.

Speaking of progressing through the grades, Jungle Jim  has gone bang-bang in two runs down the straight and posted some strong ratings in doing so.

They've been wins in 78 and 84 grade but his last two ratings read 107-111. For some reference, Jigsaw  won the Group 2 Australia Stakes (1200m) with a rating of 116 last year and had run to 108 in his two runs prior.

The Australia Stakes is this Saturday and while Jungle Jim has run twice in two weeks, there have been far worse rolls of the dice, especially at this time of year with a fit, front-running type likely to get a fast Moonee Valley deck. A quick look at nominations shows they haven't decided to try it, but similar group races in the coming weeks should be high on Mike Moroney's agenda.

Over to Sydney where the Waterhouse & Bott two-year-old factory churned out yet another winner- their 11th for the season, including the 116 rated Magic Millions winner Storm Boy .

Fully Lit  led all of the way and cracked the ton on debut, rating 101 with his 1100m win. That's a level below a few other two-year-old debutants we've seen this season, including Storm Boy (108) but it's not far off and he'll get his chance to improve in the better races going forward.

Caballus  switched from Waller to Baker this preparation and ran basically up to his best, rating 98 with his comfortable win. He started $3.50 to beat Tom Kitten at Group 3 level last time in and if he improves deeper into the campaign he can certainly add a lower listed/group win to his record.

Just a quiet one this week but next week's calendar already looks enticing and we'll be back next week to dissect how a few of the 'good ones' have returned.