Saturday saw the running of the Waikato Guineas - the Santa Anita Derby or Lingfield Derby Trial of New Zealand racing. It was built up by all the press as the race to make the Derby picture clearer. The race saw leading contenders Stolen Thunder, Mettre En Jeu and filly Uberalles clash for the first time and surely one of them was going to stamp his or her superiority over the others in the 2000m event.
But in analysing the race no one took into account the possibility of a track bias. On a day in which the first horses around the home turn were invariably the first past the post, Stolen Thunder finished ninth, Uberalles seventh and Mettre En Jeu third as 35-1 outsider Blimey O'Reilly led from wire to wire.
A last-start winner of a maiden at Gisborne (Gisborne form is usually more commonly found in joke books than a stakes winner's past performances), Blimey O'Reilly gave his owners and trainers their greatest ever thrill and gave everyone else a feeling of great confusion and the strong desire to shake our heads in disbelief.
Less than 4 weeks away from the Derby now and everyone is desperately hoping that it will become clearer some time before March 3.
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