Completely by coincidence last weekend I went to see the documentary A Horse Named Winx, a biopic of Chris Waller’s legendary four time Cox Plate winning mare and one of the greatest horses to have ever raced in this country. For anyone who loves racing it is a good watch, bringing home the emotion of all involved in the life of this remarkable mare, both on and off the track.
Just hours earlier Via Sistina had evoked comparisons with the champion with her destruction of eight rivals round the famous Moonee Valley circuit in this year’s renewal of Australasia’s weight for age championship race.
Not only did she equal Winx’s greatest ever winning margin of eight lengths but she smashed the previous track record, set by her predecessor in Waller’s yard.
Of course the manner of the triumph immediately sparked huge debate.
Was she better than Winx? What was the strength of the field she devastated? Was it simply a fluke, that she had been at the top of her game and the others had an off day? Had she really improved that much from her narrow win over Caulfield Cup runner up Buckaroo in the Turnbull Stakes at Flemington three weeks earlier?
Well, on sheer numbers, there must be a case for arguing that she would have had a red hot go against Winx even at the latter’s best, given the time she ran and the distance by which she won.
But Winx put up stunning efforts year after year, race after race, winning 33 straight and amassing a world record 25 group 1 wins: in contrast this was Via Sistina’s fifth group 1 triumph in 19 career starts although as testimony to her toughness she has raced in England, France and Australia whereas Winx never left these shores.
You can argue about the quality of the opposition Winx faced in many of those wins – no-one is pretending that Australasian middle distance horses are anywhere near the level of their equivalent in Europe – and whether or not many of those races should really be group 1 contests.
But you can only beat what’s in front of you and play to the rules as they stand in your era and certainly foreign raiders she defeated like Highland Reel, Benbatl and Vadamos had an impressive body of work eiether before or after they were humbled by her.
It could be argued that Via Sistina also benefitted from the relative weakness of Australian middle distance ranks in her Cox Plate: the toughest overseas trained rival she defeated was runner up Prognosis, who has not won at group 1 level (although he has run placings in the highest echelon behind Rsomantic Warrior in Hong Kong and last year’s world champion Equinox in Tokyo’s Tenno Sho) while third placed Broadsiding is a young three year old and fourth placed Mr Brightside’s record suggests he is much better over 1600 metres than 2040 at The Valley.
The great enigma in this debate is of course Pride of Jennie, who had defeated Via Sistina when second and the latter fifth in the Makybe Diva Stakes at Flemington in September and eclipsed her completely at Randwick in that astonishing Queen Elizabeth Stakes win at The Championships last autumn.
There can be little doubt that her exertions in the previous seven days, when she ran a storming race to only just go down to Ceowulf in the King Charles III Stakes and then travel back from Sydney to back up at The Valley had some effect. Although she did get to the front she was being pushed and scrubbed a long way from home and beaten before the straight.
Equally there is little doubt that Via Sistina showed improvement from her last start, that narrow win over another former European import Buckaroo. Clearly the fact that she dumped her rider at trackwork four days before the Plate and galloped a few laps of the Valley didn’t do her any harm at all!
So to the final question. Was this just a freak performance, when she was trained to the second, in the zone, given an excellent ride, suited by the race distance and tempo, the characteristics of the course and the prevaiing ground and it all came together in a glorious two minute stretch?
That will be proven over the course of the rest of the season when, hopefully, she gets the chance to show that she can repeat this effort – as Winx did so often.
What it reminded me of, more than anything, were two other European horses from the last 20 years who produced equally stunning performances, much better than they had ever done before in major group one races.
The first I am thinking of are Harbinger, who galloped his rivals into submission to win the 2010 King George VI and Queen Elizabeth Stakes by 11 lengths at Ascot, leaving Irish Derby winner Cape Blanco and Epsom Derby and subsequent Arc winner Workforce in his wake . Also beaten that day was Youmzain, who remarkably had run second in three Arcs earlier in his career.
The other is Hawkwing, who in 2003 won the group 1 mile contest the Lockinge Stakes by a remarkable 11 lengths at Newbury, Timeform giving him a rating a 136, the best for a 1600 metre horse in Europe for a decade
Neither was able to better those performances: Harbinger never ran again after sustaining a career ending injury on Sir Michael Stoute’s gallops at Newmarket, while Hawkwing started at Royal Ascot in the Queen Anne Stakes but sustained a career ending injury in that event and never raced again.
Let’s hope a similar fate does not befall the amazing Plate winner Via Sistina and she gets to build on the reputation she certainly embellished last Saturday. The sky would look to be the limit for her now.