Racing: Ring Of Fire ready to burn Aussie's best

Ring Of Fire is looking to extend the recent good form of New Zealand horses in Australia in the upcoming Metropolitan.

Ring Of Fire is about to add to the obvious fact that the current talented bunch of topline local horses will continue to be competitive at the top level in Australia.

The focus on the remarkable run from the Kiwis at the Queensland winter carnival will in two weeks centre on the A$600,000 ($680,000) Metropolitan in Sydney.

If you took a surface look at Ring Of Fire's Ruakaka win on Saturday you'd say, 'yeah, a useful Metropolitan trial'.

When you take into account the sectional timing of the race, you want to get your wallet out.

They walked up front. Grant Cooksley had no choice but to be the widest runner on the home turn and Ring Of Fire didn't flinch in the last 300m. It was more impressive than it looked.

Ring Of Fire is by Anziyan, a brother to Danehill, but he carries none of the compact Danehill qualities.

He is one of the disappearing style of rangy, spare, long-striding old fashioned New Zealand stayers and plenty of them have threatened in the Metropolitan.

Noel Harris couldn't quickly bring to mind the year, but he could easily remember the late Grenville Hughes sidling up in the jockeys' room one day.

"That's marvellous that you've just ridden 1000 winners," said one of the great all-time riders.

"The next 1000 will be harder," he added with that edge he could often produce.

Those words were ringing in Harris' ears for three months before he broke one of his longest losing streaks aboard El Perez for his 1900th career winner at Ellerslie last Saturday week.

"I'd have been beaten riding Phar Lap lately," he said at Ellerslie, then quickly added, "but to get the next 100 now will be all down hill".

Time will tell - age might intervene, but it's already remarkable that at 50-something Harris is still competing with the best.

A number of the rides in that three-month period might not have been vintage, but losing confidence is a jockey's worst enemy.

Watching Harris win on The Veep at Awapuni on Saturday with that balance that is still the best in the game, you wouldn't be betting against him proving Grenville Hughes slightly wrong.

But for a lack of racing room, Harris would have won the $75,000 Merial Metric Mile on Saturday on Samurai, who is definitely one to follow.

So is Balmuse, yet another blocked at the wrong time in the Merial.

We're probably going to have to wait until the $1 million Kelt Capital Stakes and the Matamata Cup to understand how unlucky Wahid and King Of Ashford were in the Merial Mile.

At the crucial 300m point the pair were locked up behind the leaders and engaged in a bumping dual at the time Mikki Street established what looked like a winning break before Floydeboy and Opie Bosson flashed home late to prove it wasn't.

Michael Coleman's tactic of kicking Wahid up early to trail the speed might have been a winning one. But when the Matamata jockey moved Wahid one width off the rail on the home bend in search of space ahead, no racing room appeared.

Worse, Gavin McKeon, who had been tracking Wahid, pushed King Of Ashford into the rails position vacated by Wahid.

When a rails gap appeared both riders tried for it and the two horses rebounded off each other for 100m and that was the end of their race.

Take no points off either and both will improve further with the outing.

You have to give Bernard Dyke some credit here for Floydeboy's record. For a few years Dyke has been playing around with a horse that you could hardly describe as well bred and Saturday's win - close to his best career performance as a 7-year-old - took the bankroll to nudging a quarter of a million.

And that's with a horse that drops away when the tracks firm and the big money is on show. Take a bow.

The other message from the race is how well is Bosson riding.

Michael Walker came up with one of the better quotes at Ruakaka on Saturday after scoring a remarkable win on 3-year-old Magic Cape.

"He's so green I can't give an opinion on how good he is."

Trainer Shaune Ritchie engaged Walker rather than stable rider Patrick Holmes in the hope of getting a comparison with the better 3-year-olds, some of whom Walker has been riding.

Magic Cape ambled out of the gates three lengths behind the others, went wide around the field and was still able to get past a very talented bunch late, despite appearing to run out of condition 100m out.

"I thought Solvini was getting it too soft in front which was why I went wide around them earlier than I normally would," said Walker.

What impressed Walker was that Magic Cape was able to keep going without the luxury of being able to relax at any part of a hotly-run 1200m.

Ritchie knows he has something pretty smart on his hands, but will miss the Hawkes Bay Guineas and head to the Bonecrusher Stakes at Ellerslie a week earlier.

"Missing the start the way he does, there's no way he's going to give Jokers Wild a start and beat him.

"Even if he ran home straight, which he hasn't done yet, he'd have to run his last 600m in 32 seconds, which you can't do.

"He's going to need all the 1600m and the length of the Riccarton home straight if he's going to threaten Jokers Wild."

Victory in the Bonecrusher Stakes would be appropriate - Ritchie first came to notice as the strapper of the champion the race honours.

You can follow every one of the beaten runners behind Magic Cape as likely spring types.

Others to follow from Ruakaka include Keepem, Aftershock, Sabayon and Punt Higher.

Like the winner Ring Of Fire, Punt Higher was inconvenienced by the slow pace and made ground impressively at a part of the race when the leaders were sprinting.

The Logan/Gibbs stable rates debut winner Keepem a potential Derby hope and the run he put in after fluffing the start strengthens their argument.

At Awapuni, winners Bonjour and Danska Mill looked as though they hadn't finished yet.