Anthony Cummings' Fiveandahalfstar favourite for Ranvet Stakes at Rosehill Gardens Anthony Cummings' Fiveandahalfstar is favourite for the Ranvet Stakes. HE won the Ranvet Stakes with a $101 chance two years ago today he saddles up the $2.70 favourite in the Group 1 weight-for-age race at Rosehill Gardens. Where trainer Anthony Cummings didn't expect Zavite to win in 2011, the experience of engineering that huge upset has ensured he is taking nothing for granted with Fiveandahalfstar today. "It sort of looks too easy (on paper) but it never is," Cummings said."This is a Group 1 race so we have to be careful. Fiveandahalfstar has had a very good week and he can't be any better for the race. Victoria Derby winner Fiveandahalfstar, the only three-year-old in the Ranvet field, is striving to become the first of his age group to win the race since Gold Guru upset champion Might And Power in 1998. An even more damning statistic is that only Victoria Derby winner to win the Ranvet Stakes in the same season was Hall of Famer Tulloch in 1957-58. But this season's three-year-old crop has been more than competitive against the older horses in some major races this autumn and that includes Fiveandahalfstar. Another three-year-old, Super Cool, narrowly beat the Cummings-trained stayer in the Group 1 Australian Cup last start, leaving their more experienced rivals trailing by four lengths and more. "The three-year-old form is holding up across the board," Cummings said. They are a very good generation and keep doing all the right things. Fiveandahalfstar looks the only leader in the Ranvet and Cummings has no qualms if jockey Peter Robl elects to take up the front-running role. "This horse goes forward and settles up on the speed, making his own luck," Cummings said. If nothing else wants to lead, then it won't worry me if we have to set the pace. Although Cummings felt the Ranvet was an open race, he did single out last year's winner Manighar as a rival he was most wary. "Manighar's form last autumn was excellent and if he gets back to that form, he will be highly competitive," the trainer said.Cummings and Robl also combine with promising two-year-old Never Can Tell in the Group 2 $300,000 Todman Stakes (1200m). Never Can Tell had won his first two starts, including the Canonbury Stakes, where he defeated subsequent big-race winners Whittington (Lonhro Plate) and Criterion (Black Opal Stakes). But Never Can Tell then failed dismally when last behind Sweet Idea in the Silver Slipper, a flop Cummings attributed to the heavy track conditions. "He went 50m and that was it, he just didn't handle the track," Cummings said. But we have added blinkers and they have switched him on. The form around him 'speaks' very well and he will be one of the hardest to beat.