Jameka handed 1.5kg Melbourne Cup penalty

Caulfield Cup winner Jameka will need to set a weight carrying record for a four-year-old mare if she is to win the Melbourne Cup.

Jameka was penalised 1.5kg, taking her weight to 53.5kg, following her three length victory over Scottish and Exospheric in Saturday’s race over 2400m.

The Ciaron Maher-trained mare had earlier been penalised a half-kilogram for winning the Naturalism Stakes at Caulfield last month.

Jameka will carry at least 54kg as weights for the Melbourne Cup will rise a minimum of a half-kilogram when the field is finalised on October 29.

The topweight for the Melbourne Cup must carry at least 57kg with Preferment on 56.5kg the current highest weighted horse ahead of Big Orange and Our Ivanhowe on 56kg.

Racing Victoria handicapper Greg Carpenter said Jameka was brilliant in winning the Caulfield Cup.

“Jameka will create a new chapter in racing’s history books if she can win the Melbourne Cup with 53.5kg with the current weight-carrying record by a four-year-old mare set by Bart Cummings’ first Melbourne Cup winner, Light Fingers, who won the Cup in 1965 with 52.5kg,” Carpenter said.

Jameka’s 1.5kg penalty is the same given to previous Caulfield Cup winners who then ran in the Melbourne Cup with Fawkner (sixth in 2013), Descarado (failed to finish in 2010), Master O’Reilly (eighth in 2007) and Sky Heights (17th in 1999).

If successful in the Melbourne Cup, Jameka will emulate the feat of four-year-old mare Ethereal, the last horse to complete the Caulfield and Melbourne Cups double in 2001.

Ethereal was penalised 2kg for her Caulfield Cup win and carried 52kg to victory at Flemington.

Carpenter said while dominant in her victory on Saturday, Jameka faces another challenge when she lines up against the second wave of Europeans including Big Orange, Wicklow Brave and Heartbreak City as well as Japan’s Curren Mirotic.