At the end of movies, it’s traditional for the screen to turn to black. As we fade into the twilight of the 2023-2024 season, there are still four stakes races to be decided, with the three Australian events worth a combined 30 Black Type Premiership points. That treble is headed by the Gr3 Bletchingly Stakes at Caulfield where, if markets are correct, we’ll see a repeat drubbing by rising sprint star Recommendation who is at $1.30 after the field was reduced to six. One would imagine we’d be exploding into the new season from early August, however the build up will start as a ripple and end as a wave, with just a single stakes race in Australia on 3 August.