KEY POINTS:
To Shaune Ritchie, Bonecrusher meant girlfriends.
Each time New Zealand's first million dollar racetrack earner won a major race, the then Auckland teenager discovered a wider female fan club.
The stress and worry about developing Bonecrusher into one of the world's best gallopers of the mid-1980s belonged to his father Frank Ritchie.
Shaune Ritchie, just out of school, bathed in the glory as the most visible member of the team strapping the horse.
When he led Bonecrusher into the Ellerslie birdcage before winning the 1985 Boxing Day Derby, he couldn't count the number of females looking for his phone number.
He returns to that same birdcage today, but it's a whole different story.
This time he has the stress himself as trainer of the joint $700,000 Mercedes Derby favourite, Magic Cape.
Two decades on, he knows how his father felt when facing some of the planet's best.
Wherever he went around the world with Bonecrusher, the story was the same.
Trying to allay some of the pressure of producing a Derby favourite, Shaune Ritchie yesterday recalled a few of those moments.
There was one memorable time in Melbourne when he spent a fair part of an afternoon with most of a female basketball team in a large spa pool.
Immediately afterwards he called his father and said: "Don't you dare ever retire this horse."
This time around, the pressure is white hot.
After Magic Cape won the $300,000 2000 Guineas at Riccarton, a $1 million Hong Kong offer was made and accepted.
When the Asian buyer pulled out at the last minute Ritchie, who owned 20 per cent of the horse as well as trained him, said: "Well, at least we've still got the Derby favourite."
It wasn't meant to sound cavalier.
With the territory came stress. This is not a game - the stakes are enormous.
If Magic Cape wins today there could be an even bigger offer for the horse.
If he fails, the downside is huge.
Winners at this level of horse racing are not just grinners, they become rich grinners.
You might think this is a joint effort, but Frank Ritchie says he has deliberately steered away from advising his son.
If Magic Cape is successful, Ritchie senior wants his son to experience a 100 per cent sense of achievement.
But Magic Cape will have plenty of help - he will be ridden for the first time by New Zealand's best jockey, Opie Bosson.
This time last year Bosson's career looked over when he effectively retired and his weight ballooned to 73.5kg, but he resumed last August and is now riding at 54.5kg.
Bosson sees no problems from not having previously ridden Magic Cape.
"I've won on plenty of good horses riding them for the first time. I know the way he races."
A syndicate races Magic Cape and the group widened when big owner Gerrard Peterson, former part owner of The Warehouse and No 1 Shoe Warehouse, recently bought half of Shaune Ritchie's 20 per cent holding.
Magic Cape is the joint $4 favourite with Sydney colt Redoute's Dancer.
Looking through Bonecrusher's photo album yesterday, Shaune Ritchie stopped at one of Frank Ritchie with the horse as a 3-year-old.
"Gee, look how young dad looks in that photo.
"If this horse does to me what Bonecrusher did to dad, I don't want him."
We'll see about that this afternoon.
