Even though Australia breeds 18,000 or 20,000 two-year-old thoroughbreds each year we are flat out breeding even one that can run two races alike at Group 1 level, if the current season is any guide.

With the racing season due to conclude in just nine days time, it would seem to me to be an ideal time to reflect on the sad and sorry state of the Australian thoroughbred breeding industry.

As an outsider looking in, it seems to me that all we are capable of doing in this country is to breed a slower batch of 2YO’s each year that transpires.

If Eddie Maguire were to ask you the question “Name one alleged top class 2YO that could put two runs together in Group 1 sprint company during the entire season of 2009/2010” - for a new Maserati car, what would your answer be? The five possible answers are a) Star Witness, b) Military Rose, c) Crystal Lily, d) Chance Bye, or e) none of the above. As the contestant in the hot seat you only have 10 seconds to answer the question. You have the right to “phone a friend”, or to “select another question”, but be warned if you go for the “select another question” option it may be even harder to answer in 10 seconds, as it could be maybe a geography question like “Name the capital of Kazakhstan”, so have 10 seconds to think about it.

Okay so “Noel” is the lucky contestant that has been picked out of the audience and he’s chosen to answer the question on 2YO’s and he has asked to ring me as his “friend” to help him answer the question. He could have rung many people from within the racing industry, but he understands most of them in high places are just full of **** - to the point where they would find a positive in the Titanic sinking, so I think Noel has made a wise choice.

In the 10 seconds we have available, let me quickly tell this hopeful candidate Noel, a few facts of life. He knows with a correct answer he can be driving around in a shiny new Maserati, with 12 months rego, instead of his current mode of transport which I understand is a 1976 Datsun 180B, complete with mags and a dud roadworthy, as Noel has found it a bit hard lately to pay the rego - what with rising interest rates, increasing power bills, soaring council rates and everything else going up.

So with Noel on the line to me, I said “Noel, let me tell you about the feats, or rather the lack of feats, of some of those names of candidates A to D inclusive”.

Now let’s start with A) Star Witness. He won the Group 1 Blue Diamond at Caulfield then his “top” trainer sent him to the spelling paddock. Then they had second thoughts and brought him back into work, with the sole purpose being to go to Sydney for the Golden Slipper. However they should have known that second thoughts don’t work in life and all you’ve got to do, to understand that that "second thoughts" won’t work, is to watch a few episodes of Jerry Springer on the rectangular box. You know the drill there on Jerry’s show – A marries B, but B starts playing up like a second hand lawnmower with C because she thinks C will be better than A, but then C starts bashing her around, so she wants to go back to A, but by now A’s jumped the fence and he’s on with K, who's actually a transvestite. Well the same thing happens in racing. The trainer (A) and owners (B) are in a binding relationship so they need to have a plan. The plan with Star Witness was to win the Blue Diamond then spell. That worked perfectly, but when they did the Jerry Springer Show thing and changed their mind, everything went pear shaped, the result being he went to Sydney and they had to re-schedule the next race after he went missing rounding the home turn. The SES located him two days later - disorientated and dehydrated, but alive.

“How are we going for time Eddie?” a perplexed Noel asks. “You’ve still got eight seconds to talk to your friend”, comes back the reply from the well respected games show host.

Now let’s go to B Noel. Military Rose won the Magic Millions with a leg in the air, but remember Justracing was the only media outlet that bagged the race, by going on radio and advising the listening audience that the rest of the field that finished behind her that day were “ordinary”. So then Military Rose went to Sydney and got lost in the Slipper running 11^th of 15, so as at today, even though she has $1,527,000 in the bank, which would take you a long way in a bus, all she has won is a Group 2 race and two Listed races.

Then we come to C) Crystal Lily. Now she got lost in the Blue Diamond behind Star Witness, when clocking in sixth, before subsequently going to Sydney and winning the Golden Slipper, even though she got a bee in her bonnet (maybe she should be on Jerry Springer, as most of the females that appear on Jerry’s show have a bee in their bonnet, if they are in fact even wearing so much as a bonnet) - and tried to run out the gate, or wherever she was headed on that day at Rosehill. A 25/1 shot Decision Time ran second and yet coming into the Golden Slipper the only black type race he’d won was that shocker they hold in Canberra each year, namely the Listed Black Opal Stakes. Then More Strawberries ran third in the Golden Slipper, yet she’d been incapable of winning a race prior to the Group 1 Golden Slipper, so in fact she was a Maiden going into the richest 2YO race in the world. And what’s more, she’s still a Maiden today, as after the Golden Slipper her “champion” trainer Gai Waterhouse pressed on to the Sires Produce, but she nearly held up the next race behind another very ordinary conveyance named Yosei – and bugger me dead if Yosei’s only win in a race before winning the Group 1 Sires Produce was in a Maiden at Ballina over 1106 metres. Ballina for Christ’s sake. Good grief.

Let’s move on to D) – Chance Bye. What a great story she was – the battling trainer whose mates all allegedly let him down when they didn’t come up with the folding stuff, then the original owner keeps the filly and gives her to a bloke Michael Tubman who even ASIO haven’t heard of, then they stick by that little 50-kilogram bundle of joy, a sheila named Kathy O’Hara. Oh what a fairytale it was. Only problem was on the day she needed to swim, to show us all how good she was, she in fact sank, so the fairytale became a nightmare when she clocked in ninth in the Golden Slipper. Granted she’s like Military Rose and has got plenty of dough in the bank also - $523,700 to be precise - but at the end of the day the only black type win she has achieved in life to date is a win at Group 2 level.

“I need an answer Noel”, a rather curt Eddie exclaims, "you have one second left".

“Well lock in E please Eddie”, Noel says, with a voice quivering with excitement, as he thinks about the possibility of being with B, or K, from Jerry Springer’s show, in the back seat of the Maserati if he’s right.

“So you locked in E Noel, well I can tell you it’s not A (Star Witness) and it’s not D (Chance Bye). Did you think at any point it could be Military Rose?”

“Well yes I did Eddie, because I come from Queensland and I seen (Noel was educated to Grade 7 only) her win the Magic Millions, like I was there on the day - and she’d have been me answer, but that’s why you have phone a fiend, I mean phone a friend, so there is not much sense phoning a friend if you don’t listen to what they say, hey?”

“Yes, good point Noel. Well I can tell you it’s not Military Rose either, so it is either C (Crystal Lily), or E (none of the above). How well do you know your phone a friend Noel?”

“Well not that well. It’s just that he seems to call it like it is, without fear or favour, so that’s why I got him”, Noel tells a beaming Eddie.

“Noel you know you said earlier that you’ve got a Datsun 180B currently, and you got booked for driving an unregistered car the other day - well you can give it to someone you don’t like now, and you can tell the police to get nicked, because Noel you’ve just won a new Maserati”, exclaims Eddie.

Then there were the usual scenes of euphoria with the gorgeous, leggy hostess kissing Noel - and Eddie being as excited as he was on his honeymoon, etcetera, etcetera.

So there you have it folks. What a pathetic group of 2YO’s we had race in the current season in this country. They were cumulatively flat out putting two runs together at the elite level, in fact I can’t think of one 2YO that actually put two runs together at the elite level during the season at 1200 metres or below, which is historically the group from where our good future stallions emanate.

So whilst there were a plethora of what would be best called grossly disappointing 2YO’s all around the country this year, my vote for “the worse 2YO race of the season given the available prizemoney” had to go to Race 3 at Eagle Farm on Saturday 10/7/2010. What a shocker it was. It was a set weights 2YO race for “QTIS 600” horses, so it was a race restricted to horses that had originally been sold at the QTIS 600 sale at the Gold Coast. Now don’t get me wrong here, there is nothing wrong with trying a scheme like the QTIS 600 scheme, in fact I’m all in favour of it, but something definitely needs to be seriously tweaked with the current system if this is the best field we could assemble for $250,000 in available prizemoney. I’m happy to be quoted as saying the entire field in this year’s $250,000 race are “legless”, as I can assure you that none are headed to any dizzy heights. I call the race “a disgraceful indictment on our breeding industry” that included among the 13 final acceptors in the race - were six Maiden gallopers.

How the hell can you justify having a $250,000 race when the acceptors are only three weeks off turning 3YO and yet six of the 13 acceptors, or 46.15% of the field, are Maidens?

Let me refresh your memory of the slow horses that contested the race in question. The field was:

What a pitiful bunch they are – and don’t forget they are the best ones sold at the sale. I think we have an urgent problem here that needs addressing. Obviously we may be better having the $250,000 prize money distributed a different way or wait until the horses are 3YO’s or 4YO’s. I’ll let the powers that be work that out - as I’m not real bright, but I think I am bright enough to know there is a major problem. Now in the final straw of adding insult to injury, the race was one by progeny of a stallion that doesn't even stand in Queensland.