KEY POINTS:
Shake the hand of your worst enemy when they win a horse race because it's bloody hard to do.
That's an old line, but very applicable to the Xcellent tragedy we saw at Trentham on Saturday.
Two nervous years to nurse a horse back to health that, with only average luck, might win you somewhere between $5 million and $10 million on the rich international stage.
You pick up just $143,375 at the end of that two years and just as things are about to springboard, your dream turns to dust on the racetrack.
Strapper Chrissy Clements was the only one visibly crying as a strapped-up Xcellent bravely walked back to a stunned silence in the Trentham birdcage late Saturday, but how many of us didn't shed an inward tear.
Then 40 minutes later out comes Seachange to remind us that nothing, but nothing, is more fickle than racetrack luck.
Before he raced, Xcellent was a clean-legged, lovely animal you'd have bet would probably never have physical problems.
Before Seachange raced, the thought was that she wouldn't because of the shape of the four points of her that touch the ground, which trainer Ralph Manning succinctly terms "bent legs".
Yet Xcellent has now gone forever and Seachange, more pain-free than at any previous stage thanks to some cutting-edge veterinary work, is about to tackle that international stage that should also have been the boards trod by Xcellent.
It's a strange game this racing industry - the only rule is that there aren't any.
At the start of her second and third preparations, trainer Ralph Manning declared Seachange a stronger horse than previously and when he said it again at the beginning of this, her fourth, you started to wonder if that was possible.
Not only was it possible, this time it was actually quantified, quite simply by the winning margin the Cambridge mare put on the group one opposition from the 220m.
Few horses you can think of could have carried 58.5kg and sprinted away like Seachange did on Saturday.
Safely through the $200,000 Waikato Draught Sprint at Te Rapa on February 9, Seachange will embark on a mission in Dubai that will culminate with the US$5 million Dubai Duty Free, a 1777m event on turf run on Dubai World Cup night in late March.
"What we have to decide on is whether we go up there early and give her the final lead-up run in Dubai, or hold he back and run in the $200,000 group one at Otaki in late February," said ownership manager Rick Williams yesterday.
"The problem about going early is that the Dubai lead-up race is three weeks out from the Duty Free.
"That's not ideal for her - she's much better suited to a two-week turnaround.
"Ideally, we'd have preferred to give her the last lead-up in Australia, but once into Australia you can't get out again because of the EI."
Williams said it is unlikely that decision will be made in advance of the Te Rapa race.
Williams said it has yet to be proven that Seachange can cope with Northern Hemisphere international form, but the Duty Free honours board suggests she will at least be competitive.
Sunline tackled the Duty Free in 2001 and would almost certainly have won had she not been taken on in front by one of the Godolfin runners, who dropped out and tailed off.
Sunline fought bravely down the massive Nad Al Sheba home straight and was only narrowly run down by two very good horses in Jim and Tonic and Fairy King Prawn.
Melbourne-trained Elvestroem won the 2005 Duty Free for Tony Vasil and rider Nash Rawiller. As the stake has increased the field has tended to attract stronger fields in some years and last year the race was won by the very talented Japanese galloper Admire Moon.
The home straight at Nad Al Sheba is close to 600m long, but should suit Seachange well. On-pace runners, even on the grass track, seem to get an advantage, which seems quirky.
But then, inexplicably, Te Aroha and Pukekohe have among the longest home straights in New Zealand, yet both can suit front runners. Rotorua, with one of the shortest, suits swoopers.
Nothing has been confirmed regarding a jockey for Seachange in Dubai, but it seems unlikely Gavin McKeon will travel with the horse. "I haven't discussed it with Gavin, or with Dick (Karreman, owner), but we'd probably look at an international jockey like Johnny Murtagh, if he was available."
* How much notice can we take of Seachange's remarkable 1.6.66 1200m time?
Very little outside of relativity.
What we saw in the way Seachange dashed away is what we should be taking total notice of.
There has always been criticism of Trentham's 1200m times, so much so that WRC president Mike Brown recently had the course re-surveyed.
The distance is, apparently, correct which means the only explanation can be that the 1200m dogleg chute is definitely a downhill run.
Astonishingly, the time wasn't even a track record - that honour stands with Bawalaksana who is attributed with 1.6.51 when he won the Telegraph in 1999. That is actually the world 1200m record.
Bawalaksana was a very talented sprinter - he scored the difficult Railway-Telegraph double in the same month - but to say he's the fastest horse ever over 1200m in the world makes a nonsense of it.
Comparisons between Trentham track records and Ellerslie's make interesting reading.
The Ellerslie 1200m record is 1.7.73, set by the outstanding Diamond Lover when she won the Railway in 1987.
That's 1.22 seconds slower than Trentham and some very good horses have tried the 1200m at Ellerslie.
Yet Ellerslie's 1400m record of 1.20.62 is the best part of a second faster than Trentham's 1400m, which is not run down the chute.
The SVU team would rest its case right there.
The Flemington "straight six" 1200m record is 1.7.16, which was barely believed when Iglesia clocked the time in winning at group level in January 2001.
No, Seachange did not nearly become the world's fastest 1200m horse of all time, but she did record the second-fastest 1200m ever run at Trentham and that really is something.
It's the relativity that's important.
And she showed us she's about to embark on something truly spectacular.
