Sprinter's one for road

JASON Warren is always an emotional winner, especially with talented but testing Bel Sprinter.

Rosehill Guineas Day

JASON Warren is always an emotional winner, especially with talented but testing Bel Sprinter.

So it was expected that Warren would be choked up after Bel Sprinter unleashed up the Rosehill straight yesterday.

But there might have been something more going on in the jubilant - and relieved - aftermath of the Galaxy. It's damned hard winning on the road.

In racing, your dung heap provides an often priceless advantage. Winning on someone else's can be a monumental feat.

For proof, look at what was happening around Warren and Bel Sprinter yesterday.

Peter Moody won the first three races on his own dung heap, Caulfield, yet his Rosehill runners - Lampedusa, Golden Archer, Thy, Brilliant Bisc - ran somewhere between hopeless and homesick.

It was the same story the previous week - three winners at Caulfield for Moody, but his Rosehill runners (trained from Moody's Rosehill satellite) ran nearer last than first. Manighar and Moment Of Change crossed the border and turned from champs to chumps.

Moody has had success at home and on the road but there is still no denying the advantage of playing backyard cricket.

The Victorians had a lamentable day away from home yesterday.

Hvasstan, the second favourite, was inexplicably poor in the Rosehill Guineas and Dame Claire stopped in the Manion Cup as if shot. Jamie Mott copped a suspension for his troubles, aboard another failed Victorian, Sense Of Hite.

Unpretentious, trained by Nicky Burke at Cranbourne, decided he was homesick at an inopportune time, backflipping in the gates before the Galaxy, and was scratched.

Some Victorians ran OK - Epingle, Dance With Her - but there is certainly a lesson, for punters, in the perils of travel.

The greatest example of recent times, of course, was Black Caviar's transformation from champion to shadow at Royal Ascot last year.

For the first time in an eternity, Chris Waller, the king of Rosehill, failed to train a hometrack winner yesterday.

But it's rare for Waller to come home from Rosehill without one, two, three or four winners.

Gai Waterhouse trains far more winners at home - Randwick - than she does anywhere else. There is an air of invincibility about Waterhouse horses at home. yet in Melbourne, you'd make more money backing against Waterhouse.

Moody is lethal at Caulfield but his Flemington strike rate sits at a relatively lean 4 per cent. Danny O'Brien and Mark Kavanagh are far more lethal at Flemington than anywhere else. The first four races at Caulfield yesterday were won by locals.

MORE reminders of the folly of our all-inclusive protest system at Caulfield yesterday.

Two jockeys, two trainers and an owner all provided their version of the same footage during the fourth race protest.

In Asia, stewards lodge protests and ask jockeys for an insight only if they feel they really need it.

The footage is clear, from a handful of angles.

A decent steward's panel should not require the biased view of those with a vested interest. Clear out the stewards room, speed this draconian process up.