The track at Trentham was over-watered and off with a monumental number of form runners flopping all day and the race times at 1400m or longer showed the footing was dubious. This G1 mile under set weights and penalties saw the clear favourite Love Affair run a career worse second last beaten out of sight and the first two home paying $23 and $17 a win respectively. Stolen Dance had never been able to win at G1 before with three runner up efforts at this level and five other misses. Today the mare, which is usually a good beginner, got away ordinary and settle well back and wide early before she was sent forward deep midrace and in fact got pushed four-wide across the top. The key was the mare had full momentum up and moved up third turning for home, which on a day you could not come from very far away the 400m, so the track bias was quashed by the overland move. The 6yo mare strode clear and kept going to win by two lengths in a herculean performance and clock an unimpressive 1:36.48. It was her tenth win from twenty-eight starts and she has since been retired and is in foal, so those natural maternal hormones are Group gold in thoroughbred racing. Watch This Space sat outside the leader and fought hard for second while the second favourite Hiflyer settled ninth but then surged into third at the 200m and then seemed to hit his usual flat spot. Savvy Dreams ran on well from the rear and was fourth beaten just under four lengths and her last 50m was very good. Savile Row did okay for fifth beaten four lengths after being last away then recovering a tad the inner plus he got held up near the home turn when going well. Shadows Cast had every chance from a good run the outer while Prince Of Passion was an honest seventh. Splurge was ordinary after a good run the inner while Amarula led and weakened out. Love Affair settled back in the rear trio, which as not surprising as she is a backrunner but the flashing light of something is really wrong came near the home turn when she was being ridden along and not responding. She ended up second last and beaten almost sixteen lengths so is now given a break as the 4yo mare has so much upside but something went horribly awry today. Rudd Not Too was shocking too finishing last beaten almost twenty lengths. The worrying link for these two mares is they both were set to run in a G2 mile at Ellerslie on New Years Day but the track collapsed after some rain so quickly and badly, as it does nowadays, and they were both late scratched. The track today may have not been a very good surface or bias to go in underdone or having missed a key lead up race. This result is a tad suspect as Trentham did not race fair at all the entire day and some of the flops were spectacular of form runners known to be genuine. A key thing that however must be noted that shows in the massive overs price of the winner that the vast majority of bettors do not do proper research or correct analysis whatsoever. The best weighted female in this race (and in fact the best weighted runner overall under the set weights and penalties conditions) was Stolen Dance by a margin on the minimum of 53kg for a triple G1 runner up already carrying 55kg, 56.5kg and 57kg.