The track at Matamata today presented was incredibly biased towards on pacers and the inside lanes, with a staggering seven (five led up) of the nine winners either leading or trailing. The two winners that came from further back were Cote D’Or that was sixth the fence in a seven horse field sprint and she came through on the faster lanes and was never ever too far away. The other came in a two-turn race and was Show The World that came from seventh and widest turning for home to just get up and was winning his first race in over three years. Four quinella’s today were from the leader and sitting second the outer (three of them) and another was the trailer (third the inner) beating outside the leader. The track was presented incredibly biased and the form therefore is suspect and marked by an asterisk of be wary indeed for most of the results but not all as some victors were superior anyway. This G3 1200m for juvenile colts and geldings saw Sword Of Osman slay these after leading and won in the end by five and three-quarter lengths and it could have been much more. It was his second win in three starts with the miss coming clockwise in the Karaka Millions, so the gelding is clearly best left-handed and in front, with the latter key as then he can get into a rhythm and once cut loose can hit full stride unimpeded. He will be raced often as not having a sire protected career means no fear in tackling all tasks that his equine blade will be asked of regardless. He clocked 1:10.58 and that makes good comparison to the Open Handicap prior that clocked 1:10.56, so it augurs well for Sword Of Osman in future endeavours. Thomas Aquinas ran on well for second albeit distant and the maiden youngster at just his second start is looking for 1400m to the mile already. Handsome Rebel ran on well for third after being back and wide with the gelding now in four outings having finished third each time, with the last two coming at Listed and now G3 level. Masque was one of three either hampered or tardy at the start and he settled down in the rear duo but ran on okay albeit distant for fourth. Tavistan sat outside the winning leader and felt the strain late as he was still a very distant second at the 100m. Gallagher was tardy and got back the inner so was never able to recover. Brilliant Show trailed but stopped badly the run home. Bocce stumbled at the start and was one of three not away properly and the second favourite never recovered from the rear duo on settling. The start of the race was anything but perfect with a bad stumbler and one hampered and another tardy, so almost a third of the field were not away cleanly at all. A race can never be called an absolutely perfect start when the second favourite stumbles badly out of the gates as that is absurd. The other two runners home were outclassed and beaten by vast amounts at the line. Sword Of Osman would have won this no matter the manmade track bias as he is too fast and strong for these and it showed the Karaka Millions result is standing tall at the moment. He was eighth in that and the runner up today Thomas Aquinas, a maiden, was sixth however Bocce, which ran third in that rich race open only to certain Sales types, was eighth in this beaten eighteen lengths. Bocce had an excuse however as he stumbled badly at the start so disregard the replay commentary completely saying this race came away in ‘an absolutely perfect dispatch’ as that is simply not based on any reality and exposes the peril of pre-determining a start being something it was not.