Avondale Guineas: Jimmy to Sleep Well

The difficult 2100m start at Ellerslie combined with the rail being out 10 metres and a number of the higher rated runners drawing wide barriers had led me to suspect that yesterdays Group 2 Avondale Guineas wouldn't be the guide it so often is to the New Zealand Derby in a fortnights time.

Even allowing for those vagaries to be used as excuses, what transpired will have left a number of punters with more questions than answers as they mull over the Derby form.

By rights the genuine tempo set by Starcheeka - who dropped out to run a long last - should have assisted those who settled back in the race however the nature of the running rail out so far in a fifteen horse field meant that those who choose to come through the inside or even the centre of the track were going to need the best of navigation and more than a little bit of luck. Favourites Banchee and He's Remarkable chose the shorter route home and suffered interference although it s arguable that the later was doing enough before his line was taken with about 1500m to go.

However the win of Icepin was thoroughly deserving as he did plenty of work early in the race to get handy and kicked very strongly when they straigthened, in stark contrast to his fellow on pace colleagues who were going back through the field faster than a Helen Clarke motorcade.

Second place-getter On The Level settled much more kindly than he did at Te Rapa - which was his first time beyond 1600m - and lost little in comparison to the winner with his late finishing effort down the outside. Of the rest third place-getter Sierra Nevada and fifth placed O'Reilly's Prize, at his first run right handed, ran on solidly.

If you thought that trainers have it easy preparing a horse for a Derby in March now instead of Boxing Day then you needed to have been taking an interest in the parades of the lead up races. Some horses who looked like catwalk models around Xmas time had that slightly washed out coat look yesterday highlighting how much of a tightrope trainers often have to walk targeting a major race with a young horse.

It's a shame when we have got to a stage where a race with as much history as the Avondale Guineas is dictated by the need to preserve a racetrack for a major carnival. In saying that the turn up in form from yesterdays final Derby lead up probably owes as much to the wonderful uncertainty of a horses physical and mental maturity as it does to the nature of the race conditions although it's doubtful Jimmy Choux will be having any sleepless nights before Saturday March 6.