Mike Dillon: Finally, we get one back off the victorious Aussies

What a shame King Mufhasa didn't race up to his best in the A$2 million Doncaster.

If he had - and he was good enough - we would have won the Oaks and given the Doncaster a shake.

What that would have proved is just how good our best are in a year when the Aussies won the $2.2 million Telecom Derby at Ellerslie and Melbourne-trained Dane Julia totally eclipsed the group one $200,000 NZ Bloodstock Breeders Stakes at Te Aroha two weeks ago.

A Daffodil Oaks victory and even a King Mufhasa Doncaster placing would have been two giant ticks instead of one.

That King Mufhasa was good enough to figure in the finish was underlined by the fact that the Doncaster quinella horses, Vision And Power and Black Piranha, shared the placings with King Mufhasa in the George Ryder lead-up at Rosehill last start.

That's racing, but our best horses have always been good enough.

Kevin Gray made an important point when Bruce Clark interviewed him in the Randwick birdcage even before Daffodil came back to weigh in on Saturday.

He mentioned that he knew stock well as Clark dug quickly to provide Australian viewers with an insight to a trainer they knew little about.

In these days of modern trainers, particularly in Australia, stock is not a word you often hear.

But stockmanship formed a huge part of the make-up of many of the oldtime New Zealand horse trainers.

The correlation between understanding what it took to get stock healthy and profitable and getting a racehorse fit and healthy has always been strong. There is little doubt the ability of Gray to several times this season pick Daffodil up again after hard races had its origins back in the days when the 72-year-old was one of the lower North Island's leading stock agents.

The Waverley horseman left school as a 15-year-old in 1951 to work in the stockyards at the Patea freezing works.

A couple of years later, he drove 2500 two-tooth sheep from Gisborne to Patea, which might take five or six hours by car these days.

"It took me and this little Maori boy 19 weeks on packhorses to get them there."

He never forgot what he learned in those days.

It was later in life that Kevin Gray became a horse trainer.

He has now prepared nearly 900 winners, but for years his mates teased him that the only group one winner he'd had was the mighty Copper Belt, whom he owned himself, but had trained for him by the late Brian Deacon at Hawera.

It felt good for Gray on Saturday knowing those mates were now aware he's trained a group one winner in Australia.

"There has been a special relationship between this filly's owners Garry and Mary Chittick and it's one of my great thrills to have won this race for them," said an emotional Gray on Saturday night.

Gray also has a record of producing top apprentice jockeys.

Bruce Herd, Kim Clapperton, Damon Smith, Hayden Tinsley, Jason Symes, Lisa Allpress and Eddie Lamb are some of the apprentices to have learned their trade through his hands.

Murray Baker will consider the Queensland Derby for Bakup after a dashing 2500m win at Hastings on Saturday.

Riding aggressively to instructions from Baker, Craig Grylls looped the entire field and took control in the back straight and gave nothing else a chance in a strong field.

"You'd have to look at the Queensland Derby after that - he was the only 3-year-old in that race," said Baker.

Joint favourite Booming chased Bakup hard from the 300m, but the Cambridge 3-year-old was too strong.

The fact he is only three was significant and showed he has real stamina potential at a level beyond even what he met on Saturday.

The grit Bakup displayed no doubt comes from his grand-dam Daria's Fun, who set a 3200m record that stood for many years when she won the 1988 Wellington Cup.

He was one of the Baker stable's tips for staying honours in the early part of the season.

Before he quit maiden status on November 1, Bakup finished second four times, twice beaten by half a head and once by a nose. The fourth was an 8.5-length drubbing by the very smart Kildonan.

He is a much more mature horse now.

Ginga Dude is ready for the middle distance of the Rotorua Cup on May 2.

He showed that in a number of ways when he got punters home for the $2 dividend at Tauranga on Saturday.

Part owner and trainer Graeme Boyd and injured jockey Gavin McKeon went over the race with 4kg-claiming apprentice Ethan Dalley beforehand. "We both asked Ethan not to use the whip," said Boyd.

Dalley not only didn't use his whip, he actually lost it when it fell out of his hand in the second half of the race.

He didn't need it - Ginga Dude dropped out the back of the field as usual, but was assisted by the extremely fast pace, which was always going to aid those trying to run on in the closing 300m.

Ginga Dude swamped the leaders in the last 100m and scored stylishly.

Miss Etoile is heading towards being one of New Zealand's stars at the Queensland winter carnival.

The ease with which the Cambridge filly disposed of some pretty smart types at Hastings on Saturday left little doubt she is likely to be a match for what she will meet in Australia.

"She had gears left," said rider Andrew Calder after Miss Etoile, without much urging, easily worked away from Don Julio with Lauaki just holding out the winner's stablemate Oakmont for third in the Te Runga Stud Premier.

Miss Etoile, who carried 57kg giving weight to all the others, won by three lengths and ran a swift 1.34.55 1600m time.

Provided she does well in the next few days, Miss Etoile will leave for Brisbane on Friday and run the following Saturday week on the Gold Coast and two weeks after that again in the Doomben Roses, a race Roger James has won with Velora and Gaze.

It might not have been the biggest win, but Pinprick's win was one of the most gratifying for trainer Paul Moroney.

Watching the 7-year-old make a winning fresh start in the sprint at Hastings was a huge thrill.

"He injured a hind leg so badly he was in danger of having to be put down as a 4-year-old, but Jim Collett managed to bring him back to health.

"We sent him to Melbourne because we thought he looked good enough to measure up to the lower-grade group races, but Mike [Moroney] said that in two preparations he never looked as good as he had in New Zealand.

"He got held up coming back here because of the EI restrictions, but once he got here he just thrived."

Saturday was a good day for the Moroney team, winning races at all three New Zealand venues: Tauranga, Hastings and Riccarton.