Gold Coast trainer Johnny Wallace (pictured) must feel like a Hollywood film star when he's in Sydney, as all the media can't get enough of him - and are, to a man, all excited about his galloper Shoot Out, but my advice would be to be very wary that he's not just beating a woeful bunch of 3YO's. Let's have a look at some of the opposition from last Saturday.

One of the major talking points around racing circles last Saturday was the win of Shoot Out in the Randwick Guineas.

Gold Coast mentor Johnny Wallace must feel like a Hollywood film star as the southern media can’t seem to get enough of the affable trainer. They are coming at him from all angles and I must say he’s handling the pressure with his usual aplomb.

Shoot Out copped a well documented sandwiching in the home straight last Saturday, when jockey Blake Shinn decided to shut the gate as Shoot Out’s jockey Stathi Katsidis was trying to get his galloper into clear galloping room. Shoot Out’s becoming the meat in the sandwich meant that the 3YO lost all his momentum in the incident, so there is no doubt that both horse and rider did a good job to get up off the canvas and still get home by three-quarters-of-a-length from Viking Legend with Shoot Out’s fellow Queenslander Captain Sonador a short neck away third.

Now the question on the tips of everybody’s lips is will the horse go to the Derby or the Doncaster. It seems to have many of the pundits in two minds, yet to me it is simply a no brainer that for Shoot Out to keep performing at Group 1 level, he’ll need to stick to the sanctity of his own age group, for I reckon he’d get spanked if he were to go to the Doncaster, as to be brutally honest, I don’t think any of those horses that competed in the 2010 version of the Randwick Guineas are genuine Group 1 horses – Shoot Out included.

If we stand back and smell the roses on the race, we find that even though the Randwick Guineas attracted 17 acceptors, of which 15 started (Saint Encosta and The Comedian were scratched come race day) not even one of those 17 acceptors had won a Group 1 race to that point of their careers, surely an interesting fact, particularly given that all these horses are only just over four months off turning 4-years-old, at which point they will no longer be able to hide behind their mother’s skirts, in the sanctity of their own age group.

In fact Viking Legend ran second to Shoot Out last Saturday and I’ve always regarded him as being “not much good” in the general score of things. My long time estimation as to his ability is surely accurate given the colt has had 12 starts in his career for just two wins. It is also noteworthy that one of those two wins was in a photo by a short head at Moonee Valley on 14/2/09 and the other was again in a photo at Randwick on 26/9/09 when he scrambled home by a neck in the Listed Dulcify Quality over 1800 metres. Interestingly Viking Legend has had nine starts in his career in black type races – and that win in the Listed Dulcify Stakes is his only win at that level, so it is fair to say that he exudes about as much class as a Kings Cross street worker.

If we look at the four horses that followed Viking Legend home in the 2009 Dulcify Quality, we find that Saint Encosta ran second, Smart Lady third, Mirrasalo fourth, whilst Beaveroo clocked in fifth. Between them those four gallopers have won just one race since in cumulatively 18 starts (Saint Encosta 0/5, Smart Lady 0/5 and is still a Maiden as at today, Mirrasalo 1/3, and Beaveroo 0/5 and last start he was unplaced at Wyong. So the moral here is that by the Law of Logic Viking Legend is “not much good” and as at today he’s won two of 13 starts, so he boasts an abysmal 15.38% win strike rate. Given that he’s the horse that Shoot Out was able to get off the canvas and gun down at Randwick last Saturday, that to me questions whether many people are quickly gaining an inflated view of where Shoot Out sits in the general score of things as he certainly should have been able to get off the canvas and beat a horse that’s “not much good.”

Captain Sonador ran third in the 2010 Randwick Guineas, but he’s never struck me as being a genuine Group 1 horse. When I publicly tipped him here when he saluted on 6/2/10 at Doomben at $8.50, the thought he could be a Group 1 performer within two starts never entered my mind. Obviously astute price assessors agreed with me or he wouldn’t have started at those luxurious odds in a weak Brisbane Class 6. Sure he’s what I’d call a “handy galloper”, but he would have to have had a leg and lung transplant recently to become a genuine Group 1 horse - to my way of thinking.

In fact it is my considered opinion that if you go through the rest of the field from last Saturday’s Rosehill Guineas you can similarly pull every other runner apart - the point being that I’d be very careful at the mere thought of suggesting that Shoot Out could be competitive in a Doncaster against all aged horses, where he has been weighted with just 51 kilos. Whilst the Doncaster can be a good race for 3YO’s, I’m convinced he’s not up to all age horses at this point of his career.