Racing: European threat makes Sunline good value

By MIKE DILLON

If you believe in Sunline, you can get rich.

Punting paradise has arrived with some Melbourne bookmakers currently offering $4 on her chances of winning her third straight Cox Plate in October.

You might think they are simply taking the chance she will actually get to Moonee Valley.

They're not - they are putting their faith in the ability of the Racing Victoria bosses to get three gun European horses to take on the champion New Zealand mare in the Cox.

Racing Victoria's racing manager Greg Nichols is very confident French trainer Francios Doumen will bring Sunline's old foe Jim And Tonic to Melbourne for the spring.

Moments after Jim And Tonic downed Sunline and Hong Kong champ Fairy King Prawn in the $4 million Dubai Duty Free in March, Doumen said he would definitely not be heading to Australia this year.

But after discussions with Doumen during a recent Northern Hemisphere promotional trip, Nichols is very chipper.

Great horse that he is, I don't believe Jim And Tonic could beat Sunline round Moonee Valley, a track which was made in heaven for the Kiwi.

Jim And Tonic has finished in front of Sunline twice - the other occasion was the Hong Kong Cup - and both times, for different reasons, Sunline set up the suicidal pace which suited Jim And Tonic's finish. Around Moonee Valley it's a different story.

If Jim And Tonic had been in the Cox Plate last year he wouldn't have beaten Sunline. Neither would a motorbike nor a 747.

But because of racing styles, perhaps the other two possibilities, Noverre and Silvano are a different story.

Noverre, from the Godolphin stable, won the French Guineas, then lost the race on a drugs irregularity. He subsequently won the Sussex Stakes at Goodwood.

You would normally not see that class of horse make a trip to the spring carnival, the European attack being by the handicappers for the Caulfield and Melbourne cups, but the Godolphin shiekhs have declared their intention to supports their own Emirates Series, of which the Cox Plate is one of the final legs.

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Sunline is doing famously well in training - far better than her co-trainer Stephen McKee who has broken ribs and a punctured lung.

McKee was trampled by a horse he was putting through the practice barriers at Takanini last Friday.

He spent Friday night in hospital but is at home and mending well.

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Missing the winning ride on Ryan's Daughter at Ellerslie on Saturday was a double whammy for Vinny Colgan.

When he rode the mare early last season Colgan vowed he would run round the block naked if she ever won a race.

Colgan missed the ride because of his commitments at Riccarton.

Ryan's Daughter is owned by Auckland lawyer Leigh McGregor and Ila Ryan, daughter of the mare's trainer Peter Ryan, whose younger daughter Tineke lives with Colgan.

If you know Peter Ryan, you know Colgan will be seen naked very soon.

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What - a prize Michael Walker didn't win last season.

Yes. Walker narrowly missed out winning the Apprentice Jockey Championship, awarded on a points basis for races confined to apprentice riders.

Walker, on 125 points, finished one point behind fellow Central Districts apprentice Thomas Russell.

The difficulty, of course, was that Walker did not have an apprentice claim to sell himself on.