THE SUNSHINE COAST NEWSPAPER COLUMN: THE FINE BALANCING ACT OF EARNING A MAGIC MILLIONS START

By Graham Potter | Sunday, December 22, 2019

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.

There is a big money available at the Magic Millions race-day on January 11 and some trainers are getting anxious about their borderline plans to get their horses into these lucrative contests while others are getting just downright irritable.

The bottom line is that same qualification criteria applies to all comers from the time horses are purchased at the Magic Millions sale to the finalisation of the big race-day fields … and if any trainers feels aggrieved when they fall short at the final hurdle, they can only have themselves to blame.

Sure, that disappointment can be accompanied by a touch of bad luck on occasions … but the more savvy will take as much of the risk out of the equation as possible.

It is clear that Racing Queensland’s decision not to split the two-year-old race at Eagle Farm this Saturday into two divisions was the correct one, in spite of the criticism it has received from some quarters.

To suddenly add what would amount to an additional qualifying race for the Magic Millions Two-Year-Old classic this late in the game would have been palpably unfair to all of those sets of connections who had been carefully plotting their path through all of the originally programmed races.

They would not have expected, or deserved, anything out of left field to arrive to complicate their chances.

Of course, qualification is not a straightforward matter.

The two-year-old’s particularly progress at a different rate of knots. Those who are precocious might qualify early but then the trainer has to carefully measure the horse’s path, race-wise and work-wise, in order to ensure that the horse remains competitive on the big day.

Other two-year-olds develop later. Some of them might be even better in terms of ability than those who have qualified early but, because of their development timeframe, they could be amongst those chasing a place late.

For some it will be too late.

It is, and always will be, a fine balancing act. If you are fortunate to win that important race within a race … i.e. earn qualification … the real, big test awaits. If you lose your balance and your horse is confined to the sidelines, you had your chance … again like everybody else.

It is a hard fact of racing that those who miss out won’t matter on the day whatever their hard luck stories are. These races are about those who take on the challenge and push their possibilities to the limit.

Just one step beyond that and all horses other than the winners on the day won’t really matter either, but at least all of those ‘losing’ connections will have enjoyed the experienced of a race-day of a lifetime.

They would have done so because, pushing all other argument aside, they would have earned the right to be there!