Shut the gait, Winx has bolted into history, but is she our best?

Has Australia seen a better horse than Winx? It’s a debate that will rage this spring and perhaps many to come.

Winx takes a paddle at Altona beach yesterday after winning the Cox Plate for the third time. Picture: David Crosling

Has Australia seen a better horse than Winx?

It’s a debate that will rage this spring and perhaps many to come, with the six-year-old superhorse giving no sign of tiring after 22 straight wins and three Cox Plate triumphs.

Yet, for part-owner Peter Tighe, some of the other great names of Australian racing are already written into the Winx story.

Gai Waterhouse, Lee Freedman, Lloyd Williams, the late Bart Cummings; Winx’s trainer Chris Waller has taken advice from all of them over the years about how best to prepare this rarest of equine talents. Just as Winx devours a racetrack with her quickfire stride, Waller had an “insatiable appetite’’ to perfect his management of her, Tighe said.

“I used to watch him when he’d have great conversations with Bart Cummings, Gai Waterhouse, Lee Freedman … he’s not frightened to ask them a question,’’ Tighe told The Australian.

Cummings trained dual Cox Plate winner So You Think and Freedman Makybe Diva, the only horse to win three consecutive Melbourne Cups. Kingston Town, the only other horse to win three Cox Plates, was trained by Waterhouse’s father, TJ Smith.

“He continues along that vein so that he can perfect the preparation he’s in,’’ Tighe said of Waller. “You never get to the stage where you know everything.’’

What we know about Winx is this: she is the first horse in Australian racing to win $15 million in prizemoney, moving past the record mark set by Makybe Diva; she is sitting equal with Black Caviar on 15 Group I wins, her hard-fought win on Saturday beat the blistering track record she set at Moonee Valley a year ago.

winx graphic for page three

She was the shortest-odds winner of the Cox Plate since Phar Lap and has developed a mass following among people who would otherwise never step foot on a racetrack.

Such is Winx’s dominance, the science of her gait is its own, emerging field. If University of Auckland physicist Graeme Putt is right, it’s the unusually fast ­cadence of Winx’s stride, rather than its length, which makes her so hard to beat.

In track and field terms, she is more Michael Johnson than Usain Bolt. With every stride, she covers nearly 2m less ground than Black Caviar, the last superhorse of the Australian turf.

Where other horses lengthen their stride down the home straight, Winx quickens hers to devastating effect.

From where jockey Hugh Bowman sits, it makes for the ride of his professional life.

“At the end of the day, she is just a supreme athlete,’’ he said. “She is recognised throughout the world as an exceptional horse and that is very humbling for all of us involved with her.’’

Waller is meticulous in his planning and decisions about each race. As Winx spent yesterday morning recovering from her latest triumph, Waller was giving careful consideration to where the horse will next run. Race clubs from all over the world are calling.

“What I’ve done with Winx has been common sense,’’ Waller said. “I haven’t reinvented the wheel. I’ve followed tradition and great trainers and what they’ve done.

“We’ve, fortunately, never gone one run too far and, fortunately, we’ve got a horse that has come back and rewarded us each and every preparation. It’s an honour to work with a horse like that. Most of us don’t get that opportunity. It is a rare few that do and a rare few that get to talk about it.”