Racing: Serious Satire shows class

Serious Satire beats Serena Miss (outer) and Strata Lady (obscured, rails) in the Gold Trail Stakes.Picture / Race Images

Cambridge filly headed for 1000 Guineas after proving too strong in Gold Trail Stakes

Early prediction: Serious Satire will end the season as the champion filly. She is not just good, she is fantastic. She had to be to win Saturday's $70,000 Gold Trail Stakes at Hastings.

Serious Satire is simply not a 1200m type. Danielle Johnson, who rode a superb race, had to start riding the filly hard from the 600m and didn't stop riding her ears off until she grabbed victory in the final strides.

Wait until she steps up to 1600m, and isn't the wide expanse of Riccarton going to suit her in the 1000 Guineas? As good as her stake-winning dam Zarzuela was, she didn't win under 1600m and finished fourth in Military Move's Derby and third in Keep The Peace's Oaks without being in top shape for either race. She was retired without racing again.

Don't underestimate the quality of Lee Somervell's training effort to win the $250,000 Livamol Classic with Addictive Habit.

Somervell has made much of the fact Addictive Habit had a three-week break coming back from a Queensland winter campaign, but that is a New York heartbeat compared with the norm, particularly for a horse recovering from an equine virus picked up in Australia.

Getting a horse that has been through such a rugged time to a group one race is as tight a knife edge as you could imagine. The risk of toppling off the edge is extreme.

Conventional wisdom is that it is near impossible to campaign a horse at the Queensland Winter Carnival and get it up again for the Melbourne Spring Carnival and there is plenty of evidence of the sense in that.

It's just that Lee Somervell hasn't heard it.

If you are running 1400m in front in 1:22.01 what hope has anything behind you got of running you down.

None, which means runner-up Scrutinize, in coming from back in the field in the Hawkes Bay Guineas, must have set the track alight with his last 600m.

However, there was no denying winner Amarula, who simply ran them ragged under Shaun McKay to win the the $100,000 event.

The Thorn Park colt carries the name of the South African Baileys equivalent. It's made from the berries of the amarula tree, which is sotall that giraffes are one of thefew animals with the reach to pick them.

The berries are a giraffe aphrodisiac. Watching a group of giraffes chasing one another around trying to get frisky is very amusing. Generally, they have better luck than those chasing Amarula on Saturday.

Livamol Stakes Day

•Serious Satire showed she was the one to beat in the 1000 Guineas at Riccarton on November 14 with a determined win in the Gold Trail Stakes on Saturday.

•Trainer Lee Somervell produced a fine display of horsemanship with Addictive Habit.

•Amarula showed blistering pace to win the Hawkes Bay Guineas.