Rosehill denied

*Rosehill has a championship role to fill.

It seems unreasonable, given the Harbour city's propensity for moist autumn weather, to expect the Randwick track not to play idiosyncratically. On Saturday, our most important day of racing, the moveable running rail was fixed in the 6m position, too wide for comfort and hardly ideal, but presumably necessary because the track had been used the week before. Enter Rosehill, her once proud carnival usurped by The Championships. The Golden Slipper's public esteem has become tarnished, while the Coolmore. for a long time the only Group One for Fillies and Mares, is languishing, totally overshadowed by her formerly poor relation, The Queen of the Turf. Rosehill could be asked to take the middle day of a championship series run over three weekends, thereby allowing a more favourable rail position at Randwick on the final day.

While the Queen Elizabeth was the headline race, the highlight in my view was undoubtedly the Sydney Cup, rendered a sterling two mile test by the conditions. The race comprised the reigning Melbourne Cup winner, Protectionist, who had dazzled all at Flemington just five months prior, and Hartnell, winner of our most prestigious 2400m WFA race at his most recent start, with an amazing weight advantage. Both were upstaged by a roughie, ridden by a mercurial but currently maligned aging jockey, unable to obtain a ride last weekend. Grand Marshal was on the "quick backup" from Monday, an "old school" play in these days of fragile northern hemisphere bloodlines. He was the only contestant to have last raced inside the past fortnight. The winner of the other staying race on the programme, the ATC Oaks, had also the advantage of a very recent run. Gust Of Power had been recently noted in this column, winning her maiden at Scone from an impossible position.