Twos
Gai got her eighth Slipper and her second with Adrian Bott, but it certainly wasn't the one she was watching.
Punters on the other hand, didn't leave Lady Of Camelot out of calculations, sending her around as third pick in the market and one of just three horses in single figures.
She's run (as you'd expect) a new peak rating, coming in at 118, up from her 112 in the Blue Diamond.
118 is right on par for a Golden Slipper winning filly, especially in recent years.
Since 2000 there have been 13 fillies to win the race (edging out the boys), with the best of those Crystal Lily (122) in 2010. Other fillies to have cracked the 120 mark are Miss Finland (120), Forensics (120) and Overreach (121).
Since Overreach, every filly to win the race has either rated 118 or 119 with the past three all at 118, so Lady Of Camelot sits alongside Estijaab, Kiamichi and Fireburn.
Given her four pound sex allowance factored into her rating, she would, at weight-for-age, rate alongside Stay Inside, Farnan and Capitalist (122) as recent male winners and ahead of Shinzo (120).
Storm Boy was perhaps a bit unlucky, forced back to the inside after being slowly away but it wasn't any fault of Ryan Moore's- plenty was made pre-race about the draw and his tendency to be slow into stride.
He's still run a slight new peak, also coming in at 118 (given he carried 2kg more than the filly), up from 116 in his Magic Millions win. Whether he would've won with a slightly better run in transit is a bit of a stretch, but to me he looked like he simply wants more ground.
If they press on to the Sires at 1400m, he's still very comfortably the horse to beat as he'll likely have less pressure and be able to get on speed and keep rolling.
Threes
We saw a few three-year-old paths divert on Saturday with Militarize and Veight both opting to tackle the older horses in the George Ryder with Veight finally getting his Group 1 and notching up his age groups second of the season.
He's clearly run a new peak here. Tony & Calvin Mcevoy should be praised greatly- he's raced in pretty much everything and it's paid dividends.
He ran in a pair of Sires at two, the Guineas and Coolmore in the Spring, at weight-for-age and another Guineas in the Autumn and now back to weight-for-age in the Ryder.
122 is the number for him on Saturday, up from a previous peak of 115 which came the start prior in the Australian Guineas behind Southport Tycoon.
The three-year-olds have had a bit of a lean patch in the Ryder in recent years, although Brutal did run second to Winx in 2019 before winning the Doncaster.
The last horse to win it as a three-year-old was Pierro, who ran to 126+ before being edged out with a whopping 57kg in the Doncaster by Sacred Falls on a bottomless track.
Prior to that, the three-year-olds won three in a row between 06-08 with Racing To Win (125) and Haradasun (126) going on to win the Doncaster and elite three-year-old Weekend Hussler (130), who didn't run in the Donny.
Whether Veight pushes onto the Doncaster remains to be seen but given their reward for teaching him to be a racehorse, he'd go in there with a good chance. It also creates interest for Southport Tycoon heading straight there with 49kg, compared to Veight's 51kg.
Riff Rocket won his second Group One with an impressive display in the Rosehill Guineas, running to a new peak of 119+. He did it tough, back and wide throughout yet still running home in strong splits off a pretty sedate tempo.
He's pretty clearly better than these horses, although Tom Kitten was probably disadvantaged a bit being back to the inside.
119, perhaps with a bit more to come, is okay for a recent Rosehill Guineas. It's one pound better than stablemate Lindermann ran last year but behind Anamoe (125+), Mo'Unga (120), Castelvecchio (122), The Autumn Sun (121) and D'Argento (120+)
It'll be interesting to see what Waller does with him, as he ran both Lindermann and D'argento in the Doncaster. If they run in the Derby he's still easily the horse to beat and that's the path I'd be taking.
