The track was biased again at Trentham with the inside lanes the run home clearly slower and only a juvenile leading won down there all day and that was due to her superior ability and maturity. It was not a G1 sprint field for 2013 Telegraph and the race is now down to 250K (the minimum requirement for this status) so must be on at least one warning as like the lead up sprint the Railway, both are now not serious top level sprinting features. The winner was the five-year-old South Island trained mare Final Touch that was winning her fifteenth race in start number thirty-seven. The amazing thing too was she carried 58kg and this confirms that New Zealand is totally dominated by female gallopers and has been for several years now with yet another regime in place. Final Touch was coming back from a G1 win at WFA over a mile here in December and then a distant third, also at WFA, over 1400m behind the G1 warriors Mufhasa and Better Than Ever. The last South Island trained winner of the Telegraph was Fritz in 2000, when ridden by Noel Harris for Leithfield trainer Neil Coulbeck. Before that the next winner was Loader in 1996 for Dawn and Peter Williams (now training in North Island) and the rider was Chris Johnson. The South Island have only won this race twice in the last three decades. It is rare for South Island gallopers to pillage G1 features in the North Island let alone carrying clear topweight and being a well tried mare. The strength of these G1 in name sprint races is simply not there anymore and the weights show it with G2 more apt and perhaps even G3 looking at many of the runners in 2013. The shame is the Railway becoming a lead into the Telegraph has weakened both sprints demonstrably to become nowhere near a G1 standard at all. Trying to fix the two sprints that were not broken for decades is yet another fine mess by the current regime that has a gift for getting things completely wrong. Bad decisions have drained the credibility of both races that would be G3 at best internationally and even that is being generous. Chris Johnson has been around longer than Mick Jagger and like Noel Harris, who rode Glengowan into second in the 1973 Melbourne Cup behind Gala Supreme and has been around as long as Aerosmith, this pair still have the best balance you will see on a horse and they still make the new kids on the block look poorly taught. Final Touch is uber-tough and may go for a third G1 this season in the North Island but she is nowhere near that standard outside New Zealand and in fact the levels have collapsed in recent years under an ever-changing industry turnstile. As an example the big super sprinter Courier Bay that won the Telegraph back-to-back in 1987 and 1988 carried 58kg for his second win. He could blow away Final Touch by a huge margin, as he was an actual specialist sprinter. The multiple G1 winning sprinter Mr Tiz (showed his power winning three Railways in a row (one a deadheat for first) and scored in Australia with a thunderous finish plus deadheated in the Telegraph for first in 1989 and won it outright in 1990 under 55.5kg. Mr Tiz could blow away Final Touch, so the standard of sprinting in New Zealand is at its lowest and G1 events they are no more. The ride on Final Touch was patience personified and the shame is the mare under 58kg won well but the race is simply nowhere near G1 standard. You can only beat what is against you but that still does not make a G1 race worthy of that gold medal standard. The runner up, another mare, was the strong closer from the back in Xanadu that is starting to look like she has forgotten how to win but being just a four-year-old there is plenty of time to remember. The third finisher Burgundy was hoping to seal his stallion credentials with a soft G1 kill but he finished third though gets kudos for being on the slow lanes of Trentham. He does not appear a genuine G1 horse and this was his great chance but when looking for a run up the centre and better footing, a lack of clear air forced the rider closer in. Hitting the lead inside the final 200m he was overpowered late and a placing at least will be on his resume after he could only finish fifth in the supposedly weaker G1 Railway. Durham Town was a gritty fourth but he is not a G1 sprinter and has now finished third in the Railway and fourth here. He was well beaten several times in lower grades over the Queensland winter so it puts things into perspective. Antonio Lombardo was sound as he raced and came closer in on the slower lanes of Trentham, while the inexperienced Sir Lovesalot was a brave sixth and has some upside. Rough Odds is not a G1 sprinter but he boxed on along the inside for seventh beaten three and a half lengths. Guiseppina (won the race last year down the outer on a dry track) did okay as the mare found the line okay from the rear trio and despises footing that is even spat on. Nashville and Jetset Lad ran on well all things considered. The whole field of eighteen runners finished almost within nine lengths and the vast majority of the field are G3 or Listed grade at best. The winning time of 1:08.53 was alarmingly slower that an earlier race on the card that was for just Ratings 75 where Trepidation clocked 1:08.29 (length and a half faster). Trepidation has good upside but the 4yo mare on times could have comfortably beaten this field today and that is where the G1 race rating is just plain nonsense. The juvenile winner on the day that led, hilariously totally against what the trainer espoused with surety pre-race, clocked 1:09.42 (five lengths slower) and was the only winner at the meeting that scored on the slower inside. The facts are not lying here towards the 2013 Telegraph Handicap when a juvenile filly was ballpark on times taking a slower lane route and a lightly tried 4yo mare was far superior in her lower grade romp. If you want final confirmation that South Island trained winners of the Telegraph used to be real sprinters with credibility then the only two victors in the last thirty years of Loader and Fritz both scored in the Railway either that same year or the year after. The major awards for this season will go rightly to Ocean Park, so no conspiracy theory required, with the 4yo dominant here and in Australia. It will be hard to deny Final Touch some award as take your pick, with the now sprinter or miler category on her G1 dance card and marked winner each time at Trentham. Mares have won the Railway and Telegraph this season. *ANZ