KEY POINTS:
It had to arrive eventually.
Following feature raceday after feature raceday we had to drop back to reality.
The 6.0 track reading at Trentham yesterday heralded the long haul we face to get to the end of winter and welcome in the Hastings spring treble.
The good horses
had to have a break at some stage and the last of them, apart from a handful of hardy souls, have disappeared for a while.
At Te Rapa - as good a winter racetrack as there is anywhere - fields are light in a couple of instances and stars are difficult to find.
Stephen McKee, enjoying a second great solo season, has two of the better runners, Korau Road and Star Of Rio.
Stable apprentice Toni McMullen will take 4kg off Star Of Rio's back, dropping him to the minimum weight of 54kg.
Last-start winner Korau Road is at the opposite end of the weight scales. He will carry his full 59kg in the $22,000 Norris Ward McKinnon, a race without apprentice allowances.
Korau Road was suited by the way the race was run when he won at Ellerslie two weeks ago, but it was still a brave effort.
He has a win and two placings from four starts at Te Rapa - an important statistic - and unless the track is playing to disadvantage on-speed runners, which is unlikely, he is a strong chance again despite his weight.
Star Of Rio's form has levelled out a little. He hasn't been running bad races, but can't quite get into the money. The big apprentice allowance puts him into this race nicely.
The toughest to beat could be Ben Hogan, an under-rated type who resumed with a nice fourth - 3.5 lengths from Bulginbaah - on this track last start.
There are no Bulginbaahs in this field.
* Fill-in trainer Graeme Sanders made his first Seachange call-in from England yesterday afternoon.
"Graeme's delighted with what he saw when he arrived in England on Tuesday," said Seachange's ownership manager Rick Williams.
"Graeme said the mare looks happy and bright and her blood picture suggests she's right where she needs to be."
The camp will know exactly where they are when Seachange gallops with one of visiting trainer Mike De Kock's international horses next Wednesday.
The plan remains to miss the first international sprint, the King's Stand in two weeks, and run instead in the Golden Jubilee Stakes four days later.