Steve Moran has backed-up his most influential people in racing list with another brave and controversial 'Top 10 Australasian racehorses of the modern era' – what's your opinion?
Here goes - my contemporary list from 1995 until today:
1. BLACK CAVIAR: May not be the best horse of all time but is indisputably the best performed - remaining unbeaten in 25 starts at a serious level of competition. No other horse, anywhere, can match that. Man O' War (20 from 21) and Zenyatta (19 from 20) came close. Ironically, Man O'War was beaten once by a horse called Upset and Zenyatta by Blame!
Black Caviar went to Royal Ascot, wasn't at her physical best and yet still beat Moonlight Cloud who then won five Group I races including her next start, in a Group I, by five lengths.
Her Australian 'bunny' was Hay List - a superstar in his own right. When Black Caviar was absent, Hay List was winning an All Aged Stakes by almost 3-1/2 lengths and winning a Newmarket with 58.5kg - conceding 4kg to Buffering who regularly matched it with all the best sprinters of his time.
EQUAL 2. SUNLINE and WINX: Sunline was better performed than Winx at three. She took the Furious, Tea Rose and Flight Stakes' treble (Winx was beaten in the latter two) and Sunline won the Doncaster in the autumn, which has to rate above Winx's Sunshine Coast Guineas and QTC Oaks.
As a four-year-old, Sunline won the Cox Plate decisively. Second was Tie The Knot whose form read five wins, five seconds from his previous 10 starts and he went on to win a further six Group I races.
Third was Sky Heights who that year had won the Rosehill Guineas, AJC Derby, Craiglee (Makybe Diva) Stakes, Turnbull Stakes and the Caulfield Cup.
Winx also won the Cox Plate at four but the winning margin was a touch flattering given the dream run.
She beat Criterion, who had won the Caulfield Stakes but hadn't quite measured up in Europe - and Highland Reel whose form since has been very good all around the world but exclusively at 2400 metres - not around the Cox Plate trip.
Winx did win the Epsom that year which Sunline was unable to do but Sunline had 8kg above the limit (Winx was 5kg above) and drew barrier 16 in a race where the three who beat her home were drawn in.
Both had four starts as autumn four-year-olds. Winx won the Apollo, Chipping Norton, Ryder, Doncaster.
Sunline won the Apollo, Coolmore (with 60 kg), All Aged and was second in the Doncaster.
You could give that stanza to Winx but in a photo finish.
From the start of her five-year-old season, Sunline's next 20 starts yielded 14 wins and six placings (beaten less than a length in each). She won in Australia, New Zealand and Hong Kong.
Winx has been unbeaten at four and five but I am inclined to think that Sunline faced stiffer opposition in Northerly, Shogun Lodge, Universal Prince, Fairy King Prawn and Jim And Tonic.
And she won her second Cox Plate every bit as decisively as Winx with a winning margin of seven lengths over Diatribe who had won the Caulfield Cup.
I appreciate that it's entirely subjective, but I am sure that Sunline would have dealt with the horses which Winx has beaten just as decisively as Chris Waller's mare has done.
4. NORTHERLY: He's the horse who effectively deposed Sunline. Virtually unbeatable at his best. His narrow winning margins and that nightmare defeat at the hands of Freemason in the 2003 BMW unjustly dented his reputation.
Northerly raced 19 times from 1600 to 2000m between December 2000 and March 2003. He won 15 of them; nine at Group I level and another two that now have Group I status.
Only four of those wins were achieved by more than one length. Five times he won by a head.
5. MIGHT AND POWER: A Cox Plate win where he ran the first 1200 metres about ten lengths quicker than most and yet kept running.
A Caulfield Cup by seven lengths in track record time; an all the way win in a Melbourne Cup; a 10-1/2 lengths win in a Queen Elizabeth.
6. OCTAGONAL: Won the Cox Plate, Canterbury Guineas, Rosehill Guineas, BMW and the AJC Derby at three against a vintage crop which included Saintly, Nothin' Leica Dane and Filante.
7. TAKEOVER TARGET: Perhaps I'm allowing emotion to take over but what a story - $1350 (incl GST) cast off. Won 21 races in four countries and five states of Australia.
8. SAINTLY: See Octagonal, part of great crop. Finished career with extraordinary wins in the Cox Plate, Melbourne Cup and then first-up in the Orr Stakes.
9. SO YOU THINK: Could perhaps rate higher on the basis of an unprecedented and since unmatched five Group I wins in each hemisphere although not sure either of his Cox Plates came in vintage years.
10. MAKYBE DIVA: As with So You Think, I am possibly being a bit harsh. Her Cox Plate win was visually amazing but not in a great year. She was 'thrown in' at the weights in her third Melbourne Cup with 58kg. Poor old Light Fingers copped 57.5kg in 1966 for winning one Cup and nothing else.