KEY POINTS:
If size matters, Solvini cannot win the $200,000 Railway at Ellerslie this afternoon.
Size of frame that is.
Solvini is one of New Zealand's smallest thoroughbred racehorses and she's taking on some of the country's best short course horses in the year's premier sprint.
Trainer Stephen McKee has not measured her height, probably because he doesn't want to be reminded of the lack of it.
"It's pointless putting a tape over them - they're the same size whether you measure them or not."
But if we talk about size of heart, Solvini is in the race right up to her little ears.
Last start, she lumped 58kg - a huge weight for one of her size - and showed remarkable courage to score narrowly.
"Her work since has been top class," says McKee, who with his now-retired father, Trevor, part-owner of Solvini, helped to guide the mighty Sunline to $13.8 million in earnings.
The record book is also against Solvini - it is 26 years since the last three-year-old, Gold Hope in 1981, won the Railway.
Solvini will be ridden by apprentice Vanessa Johnston.
The combination look the obvious pacemakers and will need to hold out the likes of topweight Gee I Jane, regarded as one of the top Australasian sprinters.
McKee is hoping yesterday's showers in Auckland do not continue today.
On a major raceday of extremes, 32-year-old mare Judena has been used to help to prepare $200,000 City of Auckland Cup runner Bak Da Chief.
There is a rule of thumb in horse racing that each horse year is seven years in human terms.
If that is accurate, Judena is 224.
Halve it and she still comes out at 112 years of age.
Judena was a high-class racehorse that won 11 top races and was retired after being badly injured in the Melbourne Cup.
"We put all our young horses in with her for a week and she straightens them out," said Bak Da Chief's part owner Peter Hollinshead.
Hollinshead, from Te Awamutu, played rugby for Waikato and sees today's City of Auckland as a renewal of the Mooloo-Auckland rivalry that dominated his football years.
"Nothing was better than beating Auckland and I'd love to get some of that Auckland money tomorrow."
