There's been some fascinating email debate going on about match races since I posted on the topic last weekend.

A reader from Dubai queried my comment that there had been no match races beween champions since Ruffian was destroyed.

John Baxter from Sydney- waded into the fray with the following response:

"There was a match race of sorts between Better Loosen Up and Let's Elope. However, it wasn't really a match race as we understand them, in that it wasn't put on as a result of public demand to see the 2 top horses in the land face each other.

Melbourne suffered a very wet Spring that year (1992), and Bart Cummings had been forced to scratch Let's Elope a number of times because of her dislike of wet tracks. He was therefore having trouble getting her fit for the Cox Plate. She had only run once that Spring, on a wet track, over an unsuitable trip of 1200m.

Better Loosen Up was past his best, in that he was on the comeback trail after bowing a tendon. He was nowhere near the horse he had been, as evidenced by the fact that he started at 50/1 in the Cox Plate, the start after the "Super Challenge", which is what the match race was called. David Hayes was also having trouble getting Better Loosen Up fit (he too was aiming at the Cox Plate, but had only had 2 starts back that prep, due to the wet tracks in melbourne at the time).

From memory, the pair were originally going to have an exhibition gallop on the Wednesday of the Caulfield Carnival (to make up for some of the missed races), until Bart Cummings raised the question of the VATC or the TAB putting up some money (on Channel 7's Sunday sports show I think). He conned them into doing so, and I think the TAB put up the $75,000 (thus the name - the TAB Challenge).

The time they ran - about 8 seconds outside the track record -indicates that it was in fact more of an exhibition gallop for money than a "match race".

Neither Let's Elope nor Better Loosen Up was anywhere near fully fit and neither was the best horse in Australia at the time of the match race (aren't match races supposed to pit the best horses against each other at their peaks?). Naturalism was almost untouchable that Spring - after running unplaced in a sprint race first up, he was then unbeaten until he fell as a raging hot favourite in the Cox Plate. He went to Japan for the Cup that November and nearly won it despite suffering from a nasty quarter crack."

Meanwhile our friend in Dubai did some research of his own and responsed as follows:

"The answer is surely that Let's Elope and Better Loosen Up missed the Caulfield Stakes due to a wet track so a race was organised to get them fit for the Cox Plate. They ran it on the Wednesday however it could be classed as a match race as it was Cummings who approached organisers and both sets of owners put up AUD50,000 each."

So - a literal interpretation of the term 'match race' (there you go - that will appeal to all you lawyers who read this!) would suggest that Australia HAS indeed had a race that would classify as such.

On an assessment of whether it was a 'race' or a 'workout' ... I will leave that up to you to decide!