By MIKE DILLON
Paul Milich watched She's A Meanie walk back the winner of last night's $150,000 Avondale Cup with not even the suggestion of a smile creasing his 35-year-old face.
The Taupaki trainer was stunned.
He had dreamed of winning his first group-one race, but the script went nothing like this.
"I have literally dreamed of winning a big race and always the excitement was there when they went over the finish line," he said.
"This time I'm standing there thinking, I've finished second or third.
"To have it dropped on you two or three minutes later, somehow the emotion isn't quite the same," Milich said, shaking his head as he walked to the presentation to receive the gold cup from the Prime Minister, Helen Clark .
The $94,000 winner's cheque is the same, though.
The public were not alone in wondering who had won as three horses flashed across the finish with a pencil line between them - the three jockeys were equally confused.
Fifty metres out, the finish looked between So Lets and Noel Harris and Ebony Honor and Mark Sweeney.
Almost from nowhere, She's A Meanie and Peter Johnson swamped the pair wider on the track.
It was more than two minutes before the nose-nose decision was declared.
Harris, after thinking Ebony Honor had him beaten two strides out, thought he had won; Sweeney was fairly certain he had finished third, but then got his hopes up when Harris and Johnson seemed unsure.
"I was going to wave my whip on the line, then in a split-second I thought I'd better not," Harris said.
Sweeney added: "When Noel didn't seem sure, I thought perhaps it could be my lucky day."
Johnson waved his whip in a victory salute in the finish, then was not so certain when the time ticked on while the judges decided.
At the prompting of one of his owners, So Lets co-trainer Keith Hawtin went to the judges' box to view the photo finish.
"That's the shortest nose I've seen in racing," Hawtin said as he emerged.
She's A Meanie deserved the win. Johnson had to angle the little mare out sharply to find racing room and the ground she picked up on the two leaders was impressive.
The race was a huge thrill for Cantabrian Graeme Watson, a part-owner who was seeing She's A Meanie for the first time.
Racing: She's a mean call for the judges
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