The Grand National Carnival has been a success, so far, and hopefully that continues on Saturday.
It's been pleasing to see southerners take home some spoils and hold their own against the North Island raiders, who have been known to dominate this carnival in previous runnings.
The southern highlight for me has undoubtedly been Irish Excuse's massive first-up win on day one.
His win was so good it could almost be considered embarrassing for the northern raiders and the few from Canterbury he dominated. To carry 60kg and give away a decent weight advantage to all his rivals showed how special this grand campaigner is.
And what a brilliant training performance Ellis Winsloe put in to have the horse ready for such a run. It will be interesting to see if he can measure up again, but let's come back to that.
There is one mighty jumping race at Riccarton to analyse first - the Grand National Steeplechase at 2.22pm
Shamal will attempt to give trainer Ken Duncan and rider Buddy Lamas a double-double. They're shooting for two grand national jumping races in a week after combining with Alfie Dee in the hurdles on Wednesday.
The are also aiming to win the Grand National Steeplechase two years in a row with Shamal. And I think they can do it.
There are plenty of question marks over the incident-marred running of the Koral to reinforce the theory that horses heading into the race fresh are the ones to beat.
And of them, it is Shamal who is the one to beat, for me. Gagarin has to be respected and is a clear second pick. Koral winner It's A Wonder deserves respect, but can only go in as third pick for me.
Chocolate Fish heads the rest.
In the 1400m open handicap at 2.57pm, Irish Excuse deserves the utmost respect for his brilliant last- start performance.
The problem is he meets a horse who also put in a stunning run last Saturday. Red Sierra's run for fourth in the Winter Cup, when missing the start and tailing the field, was outstanding. She has a 7kg advantage over Irish Excuse, which is hard to ignore.
Red Sierra is the horse to beat, but there are two concerns. Firstly she has to jump better and secondly she has to handle stepping back to 1400m from 1600m.
Outside of Red Sierra and Irish Excuse this field is very even - King Cougar, Dynamic and Trudeau have claims.
Chris Johnson has been in magical form during this carnival and he is going to need to be to help Dez again in the Winter Classic at 4.05pm.
Johnson's brilliant ride looked to be the telling factor when Dez hit the line almost locked together with Rosewood in the Winter Cup.
A squaring up in the weights, resulting in Rosewood being 3kg better off than last weekend, means Dez and Johnson will need everything to go their way.
For that reason, it was suprising to see Dez favourite ahead of the his main rival when this race's fixed-odds market was released.
Anyone looking for value outside of the top pair could consider Lil Miss Swiss.
She was back with Red Sierra in the Winter Cup and rounded the race off solidly.
Nomen Ludi was also good in the Winter Cup, running fifth.
Happy trails.
