KEY POINTS:
Mario has age against him in the $120,000 Great Northern Hurdle at Ellerslie on Saturday week.
The lack of it.
That's not a problem many horses have, but then there are not many races like the two Great Northerns.
Both races come down to stamina and toughness rather
than class and Mario will need to prove he has both those qualities to be successful.
There is no doubt Mario is one of the most exciting emerging hurdlers we've seen in years.
His runaway win in Saturday's $30,000 Tony Richards Toyota Hurdles at Ellerslie - his third from just four jumping starts - was remarkable and enough to promote him to outright favouritism for the Great Northern in 12 days' time.
It's not even that the opposition he finally dealt with on Saturday - his one-win stablemate Opus Dei finished second - falls a long way short of the likes of Just Not Cricket, who will be shooting for a remarkable three straight Great Northerns this time, it's what the distance of the big race means.
The jump from Saturday's 3350m to 4190m might not sound that significant, but what that leads to is the rugged old heads, like Just Not Cricket, putting the pressure on a long way out and making the young guns, like Mario, tough it out.
Many have failed to do that.
Which brings you to the related issue of age.
Mario is just 7 years old.
Just Not Cricket was 9 when he won the first of his two Great Northern Hurdles in 2006 and came back last year as a 10-year-old.
Starbo in 2005 was 8 and Cuchulainn 11 in 2004. Narousa got home as an 8-year-old in 2003 and Chibuli and Smart Hunter were both 9 before that.
In 2000, a 6-year-old baby in Gold Story won in a tough struggle, but being one of the Browne team in those days definitely meant you had earned your stripes.
Pre-Gold Story the winners were Adipose David (8), Sir Avion (5), Clem (7), Salezar (9) and Lord Zirito (12).
Worth noting is that before the Great Northerns moved to September from June, those ages were actually gauged at the end of the season, rather than, as they are now, at the beginning of the season in September.
So in relation to most of those ages, Mario is in real terms a 6-year-old.
Records and trends are there to be either broken or ignored and the record book alone won't keep Mario from victory.
And what a victory it would be for the battler.
In a recent 20-questions type interview in the New Zealand Thoroughbred Monthly, chief stipendiary steward Cameron George declared that his most admired person in racing was the battler.
You'd like to think that if Mario is successful in the Great Northern, George will be the first to shake the hand of Mario's part owner and trainer Kenny Rae snr.
His son, also Kenny Rae, has proved he is a lot better than the battler tag that was attached when he first started training, but Rae senior contents himself with just a handful of horses.
You got the impression rider Cory Parish thinks Mario is over the line in the Great Northern.
Parish took off at the 700m on Mario, attacking three wide long before he probably needed to and was then so excited in the final stages as his mount made the rest look second rate he provided a celebratory salute on the finish line, prompting stewards to relieve him of $250.
Interestingly, Mario went up 10 ratings points for winning on Saturday, which means he is unlikely to come in off the minimum weight in the Great Northern, a luxury position he had against lesser opposition on Saturday.
So the odds of history are somewhat stacked against Mario in the Great Northern. If he can overcome them he deserves to be rated the best young hurdler we've seen in perhaps two decades.
Do you believe an additional 1.5kg will stop Hypnotize winning the $120,000 Great Northern Steeplechase on Saturday week?
You won't if you were watching Saturday's $40,000 Mad Butcher Pakuranga Hunt Cup.
Going up the Hill the last time Hypnotize was last and going nowhere. No one wanted to be on him.
Not even rider Isaac Lupton, Hypnotize's great fan.
He'd jumped like a novice and even Lupton's urgings at the foot of the Hill and again on top of the Hill seemingly created little response.
"I thought the best we could do was run fourth or fifth," said the Jumps Jockey of the Year 2007-08.
Steeplechases, particularly at Ellerslie, are won in the final 500m.
It's the only part of the race the'chasers at Ellerslie strike the worst of the going on the flat part in the home straight.
It was what won the race for Hypnotize, whose stamina knows no bottom. And over the 6400m of the Great Northern that stamina will again be crucial.
The race changed dramatically in more ways than just Hypnotize.
On top of the Hill, main rival Proposition was bolting with ears pricked and Jonathan Ridden looked to be having trouble keeping him back and in behind the pace.
When Riddell finally released the brakes and Proposition went ahead he had his ears pricked again coming into the last jump.
But that dreadfully testing home-straight footing on Saturday took its toll and although Proposition fought with extreme bravery to take second, when he looked at one point 175m out that he might miss a place, it was clearly under sufferance.
Compare that with the way Proposition put more than 20 lengths on the opposition - admittedly minus Hypnotize - from the last jump in the McGregor Grant Steeples at Ellerslie in June and you wouldn't recognise it as the same horse.
Which begs the question, could Proposition get closer to Hypnotize in the Great Northern if track conditions are better than they were on Saturday?
Perhaps.
Would it be close enough?
Perhaps not.
That wasn't the first time Hypnotize has buried his opposition in the final 400m of a race. He did it when he won last year's Great Northern and again in the hurdle race at Manawatu in his final lead-up to Saturday's big race.
Nothing wins Great Northern Steeplechases more than bottomless stamina and in those terms Hypnotize stands out.
His jumping looks ordinary, but because it's not extravagant he uses minimal energy.
He jumps his fences with an almost disdainful air.
The additional 1.5kg is the only balancing factor for Australasia's finest jumping race on Saturday week.
Fair King was just 4 1/4 lengths and half a length from the winner and Ann Browne looks as though she might have got his Great Northern preparation just right.
None of the others looked a Northern winner.