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We go back a long way – been to all four of her Cox Plates, all three of her QE IIs and a number of other races.

But all good things must come to an end and it was the right time for her to go – undefeated for four years and looking wonderful. Longevity is mentioned as her greatest asset but we feel that her temperament could have been a great contributor to this. Basically she was a very amiable horse who was happy to oblige when she was asked to race and happy to oblige when it was a trip to the beach. She wasn’t shy about showing what she liked and didn’t like – witness her performance in the mounting yard at Rosehill last week when she lashed out with both hind feet after her ear muffs were removed – but the people who looked after her knew this and worked around it.

She was lucky having such wonderful people looking after her many of whom we don’t know but the public face helped us get to know Candice Persijn and Umut Odemisliaglu who led her into the parade and onto the course for her races and then took her home afterwards. Winx knew she was special and appreciated all the attention that she got from Chris Waller and all the staff. She repaid this by going out and winning races – 33 of them in a row. That was something she was good at – so good that we probably won’t see anything like it again.

It’s time to say goodbye Winx as you go off to your next career. We hope it will be as splendid as this one. And thanks for the memories.

Thanks too to everyone involved in her farewell – all the staff at RandWinx who turned on the full treatment and to the 43,833 fans who sang “Simply The Best”. Great memories to go with a great horse.

But it wasn’t just all Winx at Day 2 of the Championships. The Listed mile which opened the program saw a very bad accident just near the winning post where two horses lost their riders – Glyn Schofield who wasn’t too badly hurt and Andrew Adkins who suffered significant injuries. It seemed to take forever for the ambulance to get to him and they even put black screens up which must have been terrifying for his family watching in the stands. He was taken to hospital and four days later he is still there while plastic surgeons consider the surgery for his injuries. The jockey considered responsible for the fall Mar Zahra got a 25 meeting suspension.

Veteran trainer Les Bridge got the G2 Sprint for 3yos with Classique Legend. His Hong Kong based owners are talking of taking the horse over there but it looks now as he will stay in Australia and there have been rumours about running in the Everest.

As expected the track was upgraded to Good before the running of the G1 Australian Oaks which went to Winx’s stablemate Verry Elleegant who proved a popular winner, with James McDonald riding.

Of course Race 7 was the big one. Before the race we had chat to He’s Eminent’s trainer the very eminent and very charming Sir Mark Todd. He told us that he was still riding – in fact we found out after that he is shortly travelling to the UK for the Badminton Horse Show, but that training may take over! He’s Eminent is by Frankel and was expected to run well but was a bit disappointing. Nevertheless he will continue to Hong Kong to run in their Championships.

It was the Japanese runner Kluger that delighted us with his second– he’s a very handsome son of King Kamehameha and has taken to Sydney racing in a big way. The jockeys’ comments after the race were amusing – Tommy Berry on Kluger said he couldn’t believe anything could pass him till he saw Winx. Kluger chased on well – he’s an entire and maybe he fancied Winx. Opie Bosson on Danzdanzdanz said when Winx passed him he would have been glad if they’d thrown him a tow rope!

We were standing next to the Chairman of the ATC Chair Matthew McGrath and congratulated him and all his staff on a wonderfully successful event.