It is moving day for the country's elite three-year-old gallopers at Te Rapa but maybe the best of them won't be moving in the direction punters expect.
The Sarten Memorial is not just a top group two with a $110,000 stake but traditionally a crucial pointer to the $500,000 Two Thousand Guineas at Riccarton in 12 days.
Guineas entrants who run well in the Sarten, and most importantly hit the line strongly over the 1400m, may book themselves a ticket on next week's plane south.
But those who struggle today will almost certainly do so over the 1600m of the Guineas on the testing Riccarton track and their trainers often reset their goals, either for shorter summer races or waiting for them to develop the maturity to handle 1600m.
More intrigue has been added to the myriad of three-year-old pathways by some trainers only finding out this week that the late entries for the Guineas at Riccarton actually closed last Wednesday.