Racing: Rising stars pull out all stops in Guineas

Saturday's $100,000 Hawkes Bay Guineas will be the best form race for the season.

Time will prove that Darci Brahma and Dr Green are not simply exceptionally talented colts, they are outstanding.

Consider this: Rider Jade Rogers still today rates Pinmdown a very good 3-year-old.

On Saturday he led the Guineas field up and got dropped off by 14.5 lengths by Darci Brahma, who beat Dr Green by a long head in one of the truly great classic finishes we've seen in the last decade.

The 1.19.97 time for 1400m is unheard of.

It will have the Australians claiming we are clocking races with egg timers, but then they would never race on a surface as hard as Hastings was on Saturday.

The Hawkes Bay Club was midweek left in that excruciating position - having a track that was going to be perfect if predicted showers arrived. If they irrigated and the showers eventuated they would have produced an unwanted rain-affected surface - if they didn't water and it stayed fine the track would be hard.

The second scenario saw a very firm track early on Saturday that was taken right to the edge of being too hard by a fierce wind throughout the racing.

Dr Green's rider Hayden Tinsley said he felt the surface was almost too hard, but not quite.

"Horses almost always will not run those sorts of times if the track is too hard - they won't extend and hurt themselves. The fastest times are when there is a lot of comfort in the footing.

"They were able to fire on this track, but there will be some horses feeling their legs tomorrow."

Trainer Mark Walker had his heart in his mouth twice on Saturday - because of the track condition Darci Brahma looked even more scratchy than usual in his action during his preliminary. Then the $1.1 million colt was nearly put out of the race when he cannoned into the back of the leader D'Lanach when he twice sideswiped the running rail towards the end of the back straight.

Winning rider Michael Walker couldn't believe Darci Brahma could come back after such a momentum-checking incident and neither could Tinsley.

"I saw it happen and I thought, well, that's the end of him, that's one I don't have to beat."

Tinsley bit his lip when he saw it was Darci Brahma coming after his lead in the home straight.

Walker said Darci Brahma's chest muscles locked up so badly in the incident that the valuable colt's action was extremely scratchy for the next 100m.

"We were going 10 to the furlong [200m] and when you hit another horse at that speed it really takes it out of them.

"It would have been the end of the race for most horses."

The last 300m was the classic dogfight. Dr Green forged ahead from his position outside the leader and established what looked to be a winning break.

"Looking at that time, we must have really run home quickly from the 600m because my horse really accelerated in the straight," said Tinsley.

As hard as Dr Green tried, Darci Brahma stayed on his hammer and gradually started wearing him down.

As Scott Seamer had done when Darci Brahma won the T J Smith in Brisbane in June, Michael Walker had to ride the colt hard with the whip.

"He's so lazy you have to," said Walker.

It was only in the last two strides that Darci Brahma headed Dr Green and you knew you'd seen two remarkable young 3-year-olds.

Straight after the race Tinsley, one of racing's deep thinkers, said the best horse won on the day.

Yesterday he wasn't quite so sure, even though unprepared to completely retract his statement.

"I don't want to take anything away from the winner. When we pulled up I said to Michael, great effort, you lost one and a half lengths and beat me a head, you probably should have won by more.

"But the more I've thought about the incident in the back straight, the more I think it may have helped Darci Brahma more than my horse.

"He was trailing the leader at the time and it pushed him out one spot, which meant he was suddenly tracking me.

"That allowed him to attack me at exactly the moment he wanted to, whereas had he been in the trail behind a weakening pacemaker he might have had to work out of a tough spot and my horse might have been off and gone.

"It's just one way of looking at it."

Darci Brahma had a hard race - considerably harder than Mark Walker wanted for his first-up run. The Matamata trainer has said from the start of this preparation he wants his colt to have as comfortable a spring campaign as possible and an all-out, home-straight fight with one as good as Dr Green does not fit into that pattern.

"He looks good, he seems bright enough having a roll in his paddock this morning," said Walker, who has said if at any stage he is not happy with Darci Brahma's progress he will spell the colt and concentrate on his important autumn racing rather than head to the Wellington Guineas and Riccarton's 2000 Guineas.

"I won't know where he is until we put a saddle on him and give him a light trot and canter tomorrow morning.

"My gut feeling is we'll be heading to Wellington."

And that may set up a return match with Dr Green.

The original intention for Cambridge trainer Brian Jenkins was to aim Dr Green for the weight-for-age Captain Cook Stakes against the older horses, an option he might continue with.

"I'll also nominate for the Wellington Guineas. The problem with the Captain Cook is getting a rider at 49.5kg."

And, for the record, Michael Walker did not say anything to Hayden Tinsley when he turned his head his way as the two colts flashed over the line.

"I was going to say: 'Jeez, you gave me a fright', but I didn't say anything."