McDonald has won the last three Cox Plates on three different horses: Anamoe, Romantic Warrior and Via Sistina, who obliterated the track record last year in one of the most breathtaking performances in modern racing.
If that version of Via Sistina turns up today she will win and win easily but McDonald, and anybody who watches the top-level Aussie racing, knows Via Sistina may have lost a step.
“She is going to have to improve on her last two runs because she has been beaten two lengths in both of them,” McDonald told the Herald.
“But I think she can. Her latest work has been about two lengths better than what is was earlier in the campaign and I think she is ready to race at her peak again.”
Another possible spanner has been thrown into the Cox Plate works with the scratching of Globe, who was the likely pacemaker and his absence increases the likelihood of a muddling pace.
McDonald knows Via Sistina is most potent when she can follow a good speed then build momentum later coming off cover, which is how she demolished her rivals last season.
So the potential for a muddling pace on a $2.15 favourite who doesn’t like to make her own luck could put McDonald in a tricky situation.
“But that is where I have go to trust the mare and Chris [Waller, trainer],” says McDonald.
“We know how good she is, we all saw that plenty of times last year but she has had a couple of races go against here tempo-wise this spring.
“And Chris is genius at getting these horses right for the biggest races.”
McDonald admits he won’t be leading or outside the leader and will be staying away from the rail so there really are only two positions he looks to have any realistic chance of finding himself: in the one-one or three back on the outer in the running line.
If Via Sistina is enjoying either of those spots on a genuine tempo she should win. If the tempo gets messy, anything could happen.
There is enough about Aeliana (also trained by Waller), Kiwi-bred Antino and Via Sistina’s ownership mate Treasurethe Moment that any of them could upset the favourite but the $2.15 price for Via Sistina is far considering she is clearly the best horse in the race with the best jockey and trainer.
McDonald tells Herald readers all five of his rides today have chances but he really likes three of them.
“Obviously Via is going to be hard to beat but so too are Napoleonic [R2, No.2] and Enviable [R3, No.4] but my other two also have chances so it could be a good day.”
Closer to home, Ellerslie and Riccarton are the domestic meetings, with Riccarton staging more lead-ups to New Zealand Cup week, now just two weeks away.
The importance of the Riccarton fixture is confirmed by the fact our best jockey and premiership leader Opie Bosson will ride there instead of the Ellerslie fixture.
But the Auckland meeting still provides excellent punting fields as northern trainers favour its consistent surface, with Ellerslie having massive fields last Saturday and staging 24 trials on Thursday ahead of hosting over 100 horses again today.
Michael Guerin wrote his first nationally published racing articles while still in school and started writing about horse racing and the gambling industry for the Herald as a 20-year-old in 1990. He became the Herald’s Racing Editor in 1995 and covers the world’s biggest horse racing carnivals.