AT Flemington on Saturday, the 2017 Emirates Melbourne Cup hero Almandin ran a lacklustre fourth in the Bart Cummings, the race he won last year to catapult into the Cup with a ballot free entry. Sent out a hot favourite in the Group 3 over 2,500m metres after his impressive return two weeks earlier when taking apart his rivals under the impost of 61kg, he was unable to peg back ground in the straight handing up a three and a half-length deficit to the winner Amelie’s Star.

The Darren Weir-trained six-year-old mare by Testa Rossa is a triple group winner of six from 17 starts and will drop three and a half kilos from Saturday’s win.