KEY POINTS:
You know hope is all but lost when rival trainers start saying barrier eight is a help to a horse.
Because, usually, when a horse draws barrier eight in a group one mobile race at Alexandra Park you think its chances have been greatly diminished.
But when that
horse is champion trotting mare One Over Kenny, the opposition are still willing to concede.
So dominant has the great mare been in her two wins since coming north this summer she will start a red hot favourite, even from the outside of the front line in today's $75,000 National Trot.
And the man who has trained our greatest-ever trotters, Tim Butt, says he can't see her beaten.
"I think she might be a little too good for us all at the moment," said Butt, who trains Mountbatten, himself an exceptional trotter. Two starts ago he won the Dominion Handicap at Addington.
His camp had high hopes of winning the Flying Mile at Cambridge last week but One Over Kenny parked outside Mountbatten and simply crushed him.
"Our horse went great but the mare (One Over Kenny) is just too tough," said Butt.
"The way she went she will beat us any time she isn't unlucky this season."
Mountbatten is one of the speedsters drawn well today but when the likes of he, Houdini Star and Our Sunny Whiz sort themselves out One Over Kenny is likely to come forward.
"If that happens then why would anybody try and hold her out?" asked Butt.
"At the moment she is do dominant I think any driver would be happy to trail her so barrier eight, out of the early rush, will probably help her."
That is a rare attitude for Butt but after having trained millionaire trotting heroes Lyell Creek and Take A Moment he knows that going to war against the best ends up with you being the casualty.
Like most rival trainers, he is now all but forced into waiting until One Over Kenny is unlucky or hope she heads to the Northern Hemisphere, which she should, next season.
If there is to be a danger, and big improver, today it should be Houdini Star.
He ran on well behind One Over Kenny two starts ago but galloped at Cambridge last Monday.
Houdini Star improves with racing and could be a good quinella and trifecta option today, along with track specialist Our Sunny Whiz