Five Things We Learned This Weekend

Plenty of New South Welshmen scoffed when it became apparent that only two Victorian-trained horses were going to line up against the Chris Waller-trained Winx (Aus) (Street Cry {Ire}) on her first run of the season outside Sydney in Saturday's G1 Caulfield S. However, the virtuoso display of galloping which she gave when brushing aside the excellent Black Heart Bart (Aus) (Blackfriars {Aus}) reminded us that when a champion faces a top-class challenger, a treat is in store even without other horses to make up the numbers.

Winx, as befits a 1/4 favourite, strode past Black Heart Bart easily enough to win this time-honoured 2000m contest, but the former West Australian gelding ensured that she didn't have things as easy as has sometimes been the case during her current 12-race winning run. Her sequence of victories began when she landed the G3 Sunshine Coast Guineas in Queensland May 16 2015. In the subsequent 17 months she has established herself as a true superstar. Black Heart Bart has proved a revelation since arriving in Victoria at the start of this year, never having won above listed class in 18 starts in his home state. Providing a splendid tribute to the skills of Victoria's champion trainer Darren Weir, Black Heart Bart has now raced nine times in the east and finished in the first two every time. His four wins under Weir's care have all come in Group races including in the G1 Darley Goodwood H. over 1200m at Morphettville, the G1 NZ Bloodstock Memsie S. over 1400m at Caulfield and the G1 Hylands Racing Colours Underwood S. over 1800m at Caulfield. Although he could not beat Winx on Saturday, he was a worthy rival for her.

Winx looks sure to go off odds-on in the G1 Cox Plate at Moonee Valley at the end of next week when she will face stiff competition, notably from in-form import Hartnell (GB) (Authorized {Ire}) and last-start G1 Prix du Moulin winner Vadamos (Fr) (Monsun {Ger}), as well as from Black Heart Bart again. Victory there would take her winning run to 13, which would see her breathing down the necks of some of the greatest horses in history. Black Caviar (Aus) (Bel Esprit {Aus}) ranks in a class of her own in Australia as regards winning sequences, having ended her career in April 2013 with a perfect 25-from-25 clean sheet. Black Caviar aside, though, Winx is getting within striking distance of the longest winning runs of Ajax (18), Bernborough (15) and Phar Lap (14). Those three horses, of course, were all going round in the first half of the 20th century, and horses are raced rather differently these days. It took Ajax just over 16 months to record his 18 consecutive victories, a run which culminated with his success in the C. M. Lloyd S. at Flemington in March 1939 and which ended on his next start, when beaten as the 1/40 favourite in a 3-runner renewal of the Rawson S. in Sydney. Phar Lap's sequence was even more quick-fire: he rattled off 14 consecutive triumphs in under six months during the 1930/'31 season, most notably scoring on all four days of the VRC Carnival at Flemington, a feat which is unlikely ever to be repeated. What made that quick-fire four-timer even more impressive was that he had won the Cox Plate the previous week!

By contrast, modern champions tend to race less frequently. It took almost exactly two and a half years for Black Caviar to win her first 14 races, while her final 14 victories were spread over 23 months. All that tells us, though, is that different eras see different ways of doing things; a lengthy winning run reflects massive credit on a horse and his/her trainer, however quickly or slowly it might be compiled. Another reflection prompted by Saturday's racing is that, in Australian racing, 'spring' is a short season. Much of Australia has been enduring miserable weather in recent weeks, but Caulfield's card on Saturday took place in warm sunshine on a perfect spring day. It was also a spring day in Sydney – and we have a race to prove it, because the feature at Randwick was the G1 Spring Champion S. Since the AJC Derby was moved in the 1978/'79 season to the autumn from its traditional spring slot, the Spring Champion S. has been the premier staying race for 3-year-olds during the Sydney Spring Carnival. Spring, in theory, is a season which lasts three months, and theoretically is long enough for the Spring Carnival in Sydney to take place before the main part of its equivalent in Melbourne begins. However, the fact that the Spring Champion S. and the G1 Caulfield Guineas (the first 3-year-olds' highlight of the Spring Carnival in Melbourne) take place on the same day reminds us that, in racing terms, spring is a very short season.

By winning the Spring Champion S., super-tough filly Yankee Rose (Aus) (All American {Aus}) established herself as a proper star, a Group One winner at both two and three. Although now trained in Queensland (her trainer David Vandyke having moved north from Sydney over the winter) she has only ever raced at Randwick and Rosehill. She can thus be viewed as one of Sydney's brightest stars – which is saying something, as the results both north and south of the Murray River (ie the border between New South Wales and Victoria) on Saturday reminded us of the current strength of Sydney form.

The Caulfield S. victory of Sydney-based Horse of the Year Winx was followed by triumphs for fellow travellers in Melbourne's two spring 3-year-olds' mile features, the G1 Thousand Guineas and the G1 Caulfield Guineas. The former fell to the Gai Waterhouse- and Adrian Bott-trained Global Glamour (Aus) (Star Witness {Aus}) who had beaten Yankee Rose in the G1 Flight S. at Randwick seven days previously. The Caulfield Guineas went to the Michael, Wayne and John Hawkes-trained Divine Prophet (Aus) (Choisir {Aus}) on his first start in Victoria following some respectable stakes placings in Sydney.

Of the Victorian-trained winners at Caulfield, the David and Ben Hayes- and Tom Dabernig-trained NZ import He's Our Rokkii (NZ) (Roc De Cambes {NZ}) took major honours by landing the G1 Tookak H. However, arguably the most telling victory was that posted by the Katelyn Mallyon-ridden Assign (Ire) (Montjeu {Ire}) in the G2 Herbert Power H. Assign (who raced in Ireland as Adjusted, under which name he scored twice at the Curragh in 2014) is the latest high-class winner which Melbourne's biggest-spending owner Lloyd Williams has unearthed via his link with Coolmore Stud. Lloyd Williams has bought plenty of horses out of Ballydoyle in recent years including this year's G1 Ranvet S. winner The United States (Ire) (Galileo {Ire}). Another of his recent Coolmore recruits is this year's G1 Sydney Cup winner Gallante (Ire) (Montjeu {Ire}) who was initially trained in France for the Coolmore triumvirate by Andre Fabre, for whom he took the G1 Grand Prix de Paris at Longchamp in 2014. Assign's Herbert Power triumph has come six days after the Aidan O'Brien-trained Order Of St George (Ire) (Galileo {Ire}) had borne Lloyd Williams' colours into third place in the G1 Prix de l'Arc de Triomphe at Chantilly and 14 days after the Joseph O'Brien-trained Arcada (Ire) (Rip Van Winkle {Ire}) had carried the same silks when placed in the G2 Royal Lodge S. at Newmarket. It seems safe to assume that the Lloyd Williams / Coolmore connection will continue to develop – particularly if Bondi Beach (Ire) (Galileo {Ire}) can win the G1 Emirates Melbourne Cup in three weeks time.