MV On Track 2018

ON TRACK MAGAZINE 11 A couple of hoof abscesses and a tiny bone chip is all she’s had in five seasons. Her soundness – and calmness – are a tribute to Waller’s animal husbandry. He has never asked too much of her. We don’t put horses to the test – or to the sword – the way they used to once. Times are different. If modern trainers tried to start a horse four times in a week the way Phar Lap did (and won) in the Cup week of 1930 they would be prosecuted. Winx is never asked to run outside her comfort zone and probably never will be. It’s a safe bet she would have smashed the local fields, many of them just handy handicappers, that Phar Lap outclassed in his time. The pool of thoroughbreds was smaller and international stars could not jet across the world the way they do now. Winx has faced classy internationals in most of her Group 1 wins. The two riders who know her best – Hugh Bowman and track rider Ben Cadden – believe she could win over any distance, given the right preparation and a clear run. The man who named her, Richard Treweeke, says she could win anything ‘from a Newmarket to the Melbourne Cup’, and it would be a rash person to argue. No one laughed at Lee Freedman when he said he could have prepared Makybe Diva to win a Newmarket. Good judges who think she could ‘get’ 3200 metres include Hugh Bowman, because of the way she switches off and cruises on the bit until asked for an effort. But Bowman isn’t in favour of doing it just to prove a point. He thinks if she was pushed past her ideal of 2000 metres to win a Melbourne Cup she would never be the same again because she would do it on heart. The rider who partnered her in her first two wins, Jason Collett, sums her up this way: ‘She has the will to win and the ability to match it.’ We might just see that again on October 27 at The Valley. The clock is ticking and the world is watching. Andrew Rule is the author of Winx: An Authorised Biography , available in book stores from October 22. Winx as a foal with her dam Vegas Showgirl