Alizarine© Photo Healy Racing
Handicapper Garry O'Gorman believes Twinkle's performance in winning yesterday's controversial Galway maiden in which Alizarine, aka Aurora Princess, was disqualified, was similar to that of 2019 winner Petite Mustique.
'Alizarine' was a 1.75L winner, from Twinkle, of yesterday's 2YO Maiden but was later disqualified having been confused with 79 rated 3yo Aurora Princess, in a pre-race mix-up.
Today O'Gorman stated “under the WFA (Weight-For-Age) scale, a three year old would have to concede a two year old 28lbs over 7f in late July. Therefore in theory, a juvenile would need to run to 107 to dead-heat with a 3yo rated 79 in the circumstances yesterday.”
Twinkle's performance, behind year-older Aurora's Princess, would in theory see her rated 103 but O'Gorman added “neither my colleague Mark Bird or myself are rating Twinkle on a line through Aurora Princess and applying the WFA scale.
“Her best performances this year, on which her ratings have been based, have been on good ground and over 9.5/10f so it is far from a given that she ran to that level yesterday or had to, given that she won comfortably enough at the death.”
Petite Mustique won the 2019 renewal of the Galway maiden and O'Gorman expanded “Petite Mustique beat the 82 rated Chasing the Dawn by 2.75 lengths at Galway before running to 107 in finishing a close second in the Debutante.
“We think Twinkle put up a similar performance yesterday, although there is not much to go on in terms of established form, and she may well improve her rating up in class as Petite Mustique did.”
Going forward, O'Gorman doesn't believe the race will have an impact on WFA scales world-wide, saying “in the circumstances , I don’t think this maiden will be a matter for debate at international level.
“Ratings up to 110 are a domestic matter and don’t need to be agreed internationally, but in any event we could not establish a rating officially using Aurora Princess as a basis as she was not eligible and was not officially a participant in the race.”
Last year's renewal was won by the Jim Bolger trained Meala, which finished her juvenile year rated 100.
