By MIKE DILLON
DUBAI - Trevor McKee and Claire Bird are worried - Sunline has not bitten anyone in two months.
Has horse racing's Mata Hari become Little Goody Two Shoes on the eve of the biggest assignment of her outstanding career, or is she waiting to unleash her venom on the world's best in Dubai tonight?
Flanked on one side by beautiful ocean beaches and on the other by barren desert with not a touch of green in sight, Dubai is tonight hosting the world's richest, $US15 million, raceday.
It is a city with a racing and training facility that is unquestionably the best in the world. Nothing here has not had the greatest amount of money possible thrown at it.
The world's richest raceday has been the dream of Sheikh Mohammed bin Rashid Al Maktoum, Crown Prince of Dubai and principal of the world champion Godolphin Racing Stable.
Tonight (at 4.30 am Sunday, NZ time) Sunline will have the chance to make history at the track in the $US2 million Dubai Duty Free.
McKee and Bird are just wondering if the lead-up will be pain-free.
"She's due to do something to someone," said Bird, who suffered broken ribs and a smashed nose in the lead-up to Sunline's Cox Plate victory late last year.
McKee lost the end of his thumb to a vicious Sunline bite on the eve of the Cox Plate.
"I've got this little bit of skin off my elbow where she grabbed me the other day, but that was nothing," said Bird, lifting her sleeve at Breakfast With The Stars at Nad Al Sheba racetrack on Thursday.
"That was my fault. Her and I play this game where I lead her for a walk in the afternoon and she walks behind me pushing me in the back with her nose. The other day I wasn't paying attention to her and she bit me, but it was Only a 'hey, I'm still here, stay awake' bite.
"She hasn't really had a crack at me since she took a hole out of my lower back when she got back from Hong Kong in January."
No one likes to change a winning formula and the McKees and Bird would have been slightly happier if someone had lost skin or broken a bone going into a race which will stamp the remainder of the $10 million champion New Zealand mare's outstanding career.
This is the race Sunline needs to win.
It is about credibility; about showing the English, the Europeans and the Americans just how good Sunline is. Until now they have read about it and perhaps not really rated the race form in the Southern Hemisphere on a par with their own.
Looking at Sunline pull up after her final gallop on Thursday morning, she is ready for all the racing pressure the world can bring down on her.
"She's ready to explode," said McKee, who would generally much rather let Sunline do the talking.
"You've never seen Sunline like this. It's the best she's ever been in her career.
"She lost 7kg on the long flight up here and she put that back on plus another 2kg. She'll retain that through to the race and I'm delighted."
Racing: Goody Two Shoes ready to kick up gold
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