It's the glorious group 1 days, those storied days that trace a link through the thread of racing's rambunctious history, those are the days you remember.
The days when would-be champions stake their claim to potential greatness, when those knocking at the door advance their case, and those who are at the cusp become the legends of the future's past – the heroes backlit in the golden sunshine that always seems to accompany such memories.
On these great days it is those with class, talent, drive, ambition and sheer bloody brilliance who come to the fore. It doesn't matter if they have been riding the crest of the wave for a while, or are former leaders in their field on a recovery mission. They can be young or old, experienced or precocious, old stagers or newcomers bursting onto the sport's main stage with the power and energy of a shooting star.
Caulfield on Saturday was one such day. With four group 1 events – a weight-for-age clash over the classic 2000-metres distance, a hugely competitive 1600m handicap, and the two classic tests for the colts and fillies over 1600m – the Thousand Guineas and the Caulfield Guineas – the day contained something for just about everyone. And the undercard also featured a host of Caulfield and Melbourne cups contenders in the Herbert Power Stakes, and Lankan Rupee, the horse who was, until recently, the world's top-rated sprinter.
And on such a day it was hardly surprising that the big men of the sport, the top trainers and jockeys, proved themselves paramount again. Chris Waller once more showed his genius, saddling a group 1 double in the major three-year-old colts races, the Caulfield Guineas in Melbourne and the Spring Champion Stakes in Sydney.
He scored in Melbourne with the favourite Press Statement, given a masterful ride by Hugh Bowman, who justified the short odds of $2.50. An hour or so before at Randwick Waller had won the group 1 contest with Vanburgh, who could now feature in either the Cox Plate or Victoria Derby. Waller represents the front-line of the younger generation of trainers.
David Hayes is hardly an oldie – he is in his early 50s – but he has been around so long he feels like a veteran. The day belonged to him, too, as he produced a brilliant group 1 double, scoring in the Caulfield Stakes with the globetrotting Criterion, and the precocious filly Stay With Me, who lived up to her blue-blooded lineage with a tremendous Thousand Guineas win. Criterion is a tough, battle-hardened five-year-old who has rubbed shoulders with the absolute elite of the equine world in the past few months.
Hayes tilted at northern-hemisphere windmills during the European summer, and Criterion acquitted himself with honour, if unsuccessfully, in races against the likes of English Derby and Arc winner Golden Horn and in a group 1 contest at Royal Ascot. The son of Sebring was so recently returned from his travels that he only came out of quarantine on Saturday morning, but that didn't stop him seeing off a field of Australia's best weight-for-age gallopers.
Not surprisingly, Hayes remarked that "he has been racing at the Olympics and he's back at the national championships now".
Darren Weir might have had to drag himself to the top of his profession the hard way, working for decades with cast-offs, patched-up horses, low-quality gallopers and battlers. But now the Ballarat-based trainer is the state's top dog, having won the past two Victorian trainers premierships, and the quality of his stock has risen accordingly.
So it was entirely in keeping with the theme of the day that he, too, should grab some group 1 glory when his tough-as-teak gelding Lucky Hussler shouldered 58 kilograms and almost equalled the track record when he overcame interference to put another man familiar with group 1 days, Glen Boss, on the board after the Toorak Handicap.
This was a glorious day. And, for racing fans, the great news is that there is another month of them to come.
