THE SUNSHINE COAST NEWSPAPER COLUMN: WORLD'S BEST RACEHORSE AWARD - WINX, BEATEN BUT UNBOWED

By Graham Potter | Friday, January 26, 2018

Graham Potter writes a weekly column for the Sunshine Coast daily. Due to demand from those having trouble accessing the paper these columns are now also published on HRO courtesy of the Sunshine Coast daily.

Earlier this week the mighty Winx had to settle for second place.

Now hold on ... before you spill your coffee ... that result came at an awards ceremony in London and not on the track and the whole of Australia was immediately prepared to fire in a protest against Arrogate being declared the Longines World’s Best Racehorse for the second year in a row..

But an article on horseracingnation.com puts its finger on the pulse of the problem ... and I quote, 'The rankings are based on a horse’s single most impressive performance, not his or her full body of work. Arrogate’s best effort was his herculean effort going last to first in the Dubai World Cup, rated 134, best of any horse all year. It’s that simple.'

But that hardly settles the argument. It merely opens up a second one.

If the criteria 'best single performance' and the title 'world's best racehorse' are not in sync something needs to change.

Separate awards are needed for sure because logically these two achievements are very different from each other in real terms.

Winx's connections must feel good knowing so many people want to go in and bat for her but the truth is she has nothing left to prove and her champion status will be on record for all time ... irrespective of how many awards she has next to her name!

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Corbould Park will be the place to be tomorrow when the Sunshine Coast Turf Club hosts its Sunshine Coast Cup / 2 yo Classic race-day.

It will not only be a change of scheduling for local racegoers, who normally like to find their way to the track on a Sunday, but it will also be change of pace with the meeting having metropolitan status meaning that both the spectators’ day out and the action on the track will be a bit more hectic than the regular Sunday afternoon fare.

It will also be something of an endurance test for some with a massive ten races program ... or, alternatively, if you want to stay in positive vein, there will be more chance to socialise and gamble than is provided by the usual eight race card.

To that end, racegoers who want to get there for the first race should note that the massive ten race program kicks off at 11.55am.