Weekend Wisdom 20th March 2016

Doncaster Mares

Easter Saturday 1978, early like this year, falling on the 25th March. My twelve-year-old self, home from boarding school, poring over the formguide liftout from the Weekend Australian, glued to my cheap transistor all afternoon as races from Randwick and Caulfield were run and won.

And entranced by the call of Maybe Mahal, waltzing away with the Doncaster on a bog track at her second attempt. Even then I perceived that winning the Lightning-Newmarket double was a less than ideal preparation for Australia’s pre-eminent mile.

I could barely contain my enthusiasm for this Cummings-trained 5-y-o mare. She’d earned idol status with me, racking up two Lightnings, a Newmarket, Doomben 10000, and 1976’s equivalent of the Darley Classic – Emirates double.

Trailing in her wake was the previous year’s winner and my moniker, stablemate Just Ideal. Earlier in the afternoon, Manikato came off his slipper win to run down the course in the Sires Produce.

The Doncaster’s history is tied to many elite mares of the turf.

Fast forward to 1983, and I’m fortunate to witness three-year-old filly Emancipation’s Autumn stroll through the Light Fingers, Canterbury Stakes, George Ryder and Doncaster. Grey in colour but black and white by nature. If she couldn’t win, she didn’t try. 28 starts, 19 wins, 1 placing.

By 1999, kiwi filly Sunline was preparing to make her mark. An impeccable Sydney spring was followed by a mainly Victorian Doncaster preparation, losing inexplicably over a mile second-up at Caulfield, reconnoitring the Cox Plate course in the Moonee Valley Oaks, before cruising across from an outside gate for a painless 10/9 victory in our famous Easter Mile.

The 4-y-o Sunline proceeded from the Apollo through the Coolmore to a narrow defeat but moral victory at the hands of the enigmatic Hawkes/Ingham 3-y-o Over.

A Dubai assignment precluded a 5-y-o tilt, but a monstering by Northerly in the 2001 Cox Plate was just the incentive to pilfer another Coolmore enroute to a deceptive photo-booth Doncaster with the mercurial Shogun Lodge. SP 15/8 for the fans on this occasion.

Private Steer was to Lee Curtis what Ivory’s Irish was to Geoff Borger. Their “good horse” winning majors in someone else’s name. 2004 produced said “gun” mare 5th-up in the Doncaster via wins in the Breeders and Apollo, and placings in the Coolmore and Ryder. Her turn-of-foot was highly memorable.

And so to the infamous More Joyous. She carried a four-picket fence onto a Heavy 10 to flounder astern of sorority sister and mud-eater Sacred Choice in 2011. Only to return off a two-run-lighter preparation and a kinder surface to nail the 2012 Mile and then “make all” in the Queen Liz.

The foregoing history dissertation pertains clearly to Winx, our current darling. Talk is rife that her Autumn campaign may be amended to annex the Doncaster enroute to her Grand Final.

Saturday’s Ryder success provides a perfect platform. I’ve made mention of the few favours afforded her thus far, but her latest effort, powering away in spite of an unsympathetic trip, iced her “I’m very special” cake.

In figures comprehensively the best of the day.

Nevertheless, it is a perilous undertaking. Winx may have made the Epsom look easy, but the Doncaster possesses an inimitable testing quality, often reinforced by adverse underfoot conditions. The 3-y-os lurk menacingly, buoyed by their connections’ intent, who perceive their charges to be handicapped advantageously.

Lonhro was made to look meek in 2003.

It is this danger that creates the contest we so desire. The 2010 Melbourne Cup was a demonstrably-more salivating prospect with the presence of So You Think.

Bring on the nation’s number one mile.

Autumn programming blues

Saturday’s five majors on a programme dense with high quality horseform, nonetheless failed, in my opinion, to elevate one’s spirit. Winx’s George Ryder aside, there was a distinct lack of flavour afterwards. To borrow a phrase from wine-tasting, “no lingering on the palate”.

I suspect the answer may lie in the lack of build-up to Saturday’s feast. There appeared a manufactured quality to the proceedings. A kind of, “put them on and they will come”.

The BMW/Tancred and the Golden Slipper have lost their pre-eminence.

Inflation of the Queen Liz has relegated the BMW to a Sydney Cup lead-up, while bringing forward the Slipper has robbed said race of tension.

I propose that Rosehill be included in the Championships. How can Sydney’s famous 2-y-o race not be part of the event sponsored by the State of NSW?

Reform the two-year-old triple crown.

Run a major 1200m at Randwick two weeks prior to the first Championship day at Rosehill, headlined by the Slipper, now penultimate to the final leg, the Sires, on the latter of two Randwick Championship days.

Melbourne’s Cox Plate cannot be usurped.

Therefore, Sydney’s premier WFA race needs to be run over a mile-and-a-half (2400m). A Classic distance employed by the renowned Prix de l'Arc de Triomphe and the King George VI and Queen Elizabeth Stakes.

Making the Queen Liz 2400m on the final day, enables the BMW to shrink to 2000m on Rosehill’s day.

Prefacing these two mighty events, the Ranvet/Rawson is now 1800m at Randwick.

Hopefully, Ajax, beaten at 1/33 in the Rawson Stakes of yesteryear, will not be displeased.

@justideal