Sonnyboyliston set to miss Melbourne Cup as Twilight Payment handed top weight

They may be fewer in number this year but internationally trained horses still dominate the top order of the Lexus Melbourne Cup weights, which were released by Racing Victoria and the Victoria Racing Club (VRC) on Tuesday.

The Joseph O'Brien-trained defending champion Twilight Payment and rapidly emerging Irish stayer Sonnyboyliston were revealed as joint-topweights for the race on November 2, with 58kg allotted to each.

The pair ran in Sunday's Group 1 Irish St Leger at the Curragh, although Racing Victoria's international recruiter Paul Bloodworth confirmed that connections of Sonnyboyliston had indicated the horse would not travel to Melbourne this spring.

"Sonnyboyliston is going for a bit of a rest now and will target international races next year, so we're hopeful we might be able to secure him for the Cups in the future," Bloodworth said.

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Of the top six horses in the weights, four are from Europe with Gold Trip, who will be prepared by Ciaron Maher and David Eustace when he arrives in Australia and initially aimed at the Cox Plate, and the Andrew Balding-trained Spanish Mission both given 57kg.

Gold Trip, Spanish Mission and Cox Plate contender State Of Rest remain in pre-export quarantine at Newmarket. They will travel on the first shipment to Melbourne, arriving on September 25.

Last year's Cox Plate hero Sir Dragonet is the highest-weighted Australian horse in the Melbourne Cup with 57.5kg, ahead of Victorian Horse of the Year Verry Elleegant (57kg) and Incentivise (55.5kg).

Greg Carpenter, Racing Victoria's executive general manager of racing, said Twilight Payment was a deserving topweight based on his win in the race last year and his recent form in Europe.

"As always there is plenty of debate over the weights scale for the Cups which will no doubt continue over the coming weeks, but after his all-the-way win in last year's Melbourne Cup there is little doubt Twilight Payment deserves to be at the top of the weights for the 2021 edition of Australia's greatest race," Carpenter said.

Sonnyboyliston wins the Irish St Leger by under a length from Twilight PaymentCredit: Caroline Norris

Another of the internationally trained runners confirmed to travel to Melbourne, the Ismail Mohammed-trained Away He Goes, has 54.5kg in the race.

"I'd have loved a couple more but I'm happy with the level of quality we're going to see in both the Caulfield and Melbourne Cups," Bloodworth said of the international entries.

"In Spanish Mission, I think we've got the second-best stayer in Europe after Stradivarius. Away He Goes is probably not at that level but he's a promising, up-and-coming stayer and we've got the defending champion.

"So even though we don't have the numbers of previous years, we've certainly got significant quality to contest the race this year.

"Then if you throw in the one-way ticket of Gold Trip, fourth in the Arc last year, it brings a significant element of form to the Cox Plate."

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