KEY POINTS:
It's remarkable how many thoughts can pass through your mind in excitable moments.
Plenty of them surged through Shaune Ritchie's brain as he watched Patrick Holmes do his thing aboard Magic Cape as the pair flashed across the Riccarton finish line to beat hot favourite Jokers Wild in Saturday's $300,000 First Sovereign Trust 2000 Guineas.
Bonecrusher was one of them.
The 36-year-old Ritchie has trained plenty of winners, but until Saturday he was equally well known for being Bonecrusher's strapper.
The Cambridge trainer would not swap an arm for his Bonecrusher moments two decades back, but, as wonderful as they were, there is something that grates about having more stories written about you for strapping a horse than the winners you've trained.
All that changed last Saturday.
Ritchie watched the mighty Bonecrusher win nine group one races for his father Frank and from the centre of an excited bunch of owners in the Riccarton grandstand he cheered home one for himself.
"I trained a group one winner in Zoro when I was training in partnership with dad, but this is the first on my own."
The ownership team was lucky to score this one.
Mid-year a large offer was made for Magic Cape. The team wavered, asked for a bit more and the deal fell through.
Shaune Ritchie was tipped into Magic Cape by an employee of Windsor Park Stud who had been preparing the horse for the Karaka Ready To Run sale.
"As a syndicate we had only $40,000 to spend. Magic Cape made $50,000, and to make up the difference I had to pinch a couple of dad's clients."
One of those, Aucklander Grant Barnett, would have been disappointed if the sale had taken place after his first win.
A few years ago he won four races with Currency, whose future then looked to be over jumps.
"We sold him and, of course, he won the Grand National.
"This makes up for a lot of that."
Despite winning on debut at Ellerslie as a juvenile with a stunning last-to-first performance, Magic Cape has been a slow learner.
He is also one of the laziest horses going around.
When he resumed with a winning performance at Ruakaka a couple of months ago, winning rider Michael Walker said he couldn't offer an opinion on how good the horse was because as a racehorse he still had no idea what he was out on the racetrack for.
That didn't look to be the case as he set out after Jokers Wild with a hugely determined bid on Saturday.
Jokers Wild was brave and momentarily looked as though he was going to be brave enough, but Magic Cape was relentless.
He put his head down like a top-class emerging stayer and forged past late, but with enough time before the winning post for Holmes to give a victory wave with his whip so theatrical it deserved a stage play all of its own.
Interestingly, Holmes was not fined for the flourish, getting off with a warning.
There appears to be an inconsistency in that ruling.
Many fines have been handed down when not all, including this writer, agree that it constitutes the danger authorities have indicated.
Horse racing is a high-stakes, high-adrenaline pursuit and jockeys displaying excitement adds plenty to an occasion.
Riders inherently weigh up dangerous moments in a race and are not likely to endanger themselves or others foolishly.
Letting Holmes off will make it difficult to fine the next transgressor.
Holmes really owed Ritchie this one.
It was the Cambridge trainer who revived his career when the McKee stable, to which he was successfully apprenticed, cancelled his licence for insubordination.
Holmes, always a talented horseman, bummed around harness stables seemingly without a future in the thoroughbred industry before Ritchie persuaded Trevor McKee to transfer over his apprenticeship.
Holmes has battled weight issues and residual pain from a badly broken leg, which he says he will have to do something about in the near future.
It's been an interesting time for the 19-year-old.
Magic Cape was his first winner for a month, he became engaged to Kylie Akehurst on Friday night and finishes his apprenticeship soon.
Rider Michael Coleman was not prepared to mark down Jokers Wild's scorecard for being beaten.
"He gave it everything he had. He tried really hard, but the winner was just too strong," said Coleman.
Ritchie, similarly, admired the Jokers Wild effort.
"I don't think we could have beaten him if it hadn't rained - I still think he's the best 3-year-old up to 1600m.
"Not that my horse needs wet ground, it's just that we needed the track the way it was to beat the favourite this time.
"It suited us and not him."
When Magic Cape was unlucky in the Hawkes Bay Guineas at his previous start it became clear his future lay as a stayer and Ritchie will aim the horse at the Derby at Ellerslie in March.
If Ritchie needed one last thought it arrived as he walked through the Riccarton parade ring at the back of the grandstand on his way to the carpark on Saturday night.
He recalled 21 years ago to the day walking Bonecrusher through that ring - but not as a winner.
As great as the horse was, he'd been beaten in the 2000 Guineas by Field Dancer and Random Chance.
The Bonecrusher tag has finally been shed.
