So The Championships is over and the announcements of invited runners for the Champions Mile on Wednesday and the Audemars Piguet QE II Cup last week remind us that the health of The Championships has a warped but direct and not inconsequential relationship with the health of internationals here.
Sydney acts as both a feeder and a withholder from Hong Kong's spring features. Last year, The Championships attracted Gordon Lord Byron from the western hemisphere and the Irish galloper followed up by tackling the Champions Mile. This year, the European at Randwick was Red Cadeaux, who will also follow up at Sha Tin in the QE II Cup.
Fortunately, the QE II Cup also suits the Royal Ascot-bound programme for David Hayes-trained Criterion, so first and second from Sydney's richest race will adorn the QE II as well.
At the same time, there will be horses that choose Sydney over Sha Tin as well, particularly from Japan. That Sydney was able to attract such a highly rated Japanese horse as To The World - his country's sixth-ranked thoroughbred - was something of a surprise.
In other circumstances, he and/or Tosen Stardom might have been the kinds of horses to come here for the QE II and Real Impact and World Ace likely types for the Champions Mile.
Instead they chose Sydney and this is an arm wrestle that might ebb and flow according to the dates of Easter but will still play out constantly as long as The Championships continue, and that continuation depends on Sydney's government, tourism-based financial backing for two of the big days at Randwick. (The third, this weekend, also has Group One racing but, oddly, doesn't make it for inclusion in the concept.)
We can only guess at what metrics are used to judge success there but, in terms of attracting horse flesh in just the second year of the concept, Sydney is doing the job and now it has a quarantine facility with rave reviews to help in attracting more participation.
The international flavour of the Champions Mile has always been difficult to achieve, given the proficiency of local milers and the relative proximity to the Yasuda Kinen. Mile racing in Japan is strong and the Japanese might have been considered the most likely visitors but it hasn't been the case, with the month between Sha Tin and Fuchu apparently not seen as enough of a gap given that there is travel as well and there are traditional Yasuda Kinen lead-ups around the same time within Japan.
The QE II Cup has a better history of internationalism tied to its roots back in the era before Hong Kong's horses became so tough to beat at home and tied into the longer distance, at and beyond which our horses really do meet their match.
Hong Kong's ability to attract visitors from the Dubai carnival to both races has been and will continue to be a key to the depth of these internationals. Variety Club, Presvis, Archipenko, Irridescence all came through Dubai to win the QE II.
That and the odd France- or Germany-based horse with an eye on big prize money in Asia, without the prospect of bumping into Treve or Frankel or the like, has sustained the international side of the QE II.
The Championships probably appear a trip too far for Dubai-based horses and come too soon anyway after World Cup night, but it would be foolish to think that someone like Mike de Kock has not taken on board the money being offered in Sydney.
De Kock wasn't the same force this year even in Dubai, where a number of his leading lights went amiss and didn't make it to World Cup night, thus his significant absence from the Hong Kong internationals coming up after being a regular for most of the past decade.
The Championships may be diverting some talent away from international events here but the QE II Cup would be looking pretty sparse without its contribution this year.
Joao Moreira victim of Aussie tall poppy syndrome
One of the more amusing sidelights to Sydney's The Championships and its forerunner carnival racing in Melbourne has been the three traditional stages of Australian media courtship undergone by Joao Moreira.
Stage one, which probably for Moreira stretches back even to the days when Nathan Tinkler's Patinack Farm operation imported him occasionally, involves a general expression of doubt about anyone or anything arriving in Australia with a big reputation built and bestowed somewhere else.
Stage two is where the doubters become giggling converts and join the chorus of praise and infatuated wonder, and that was the process the Magic Man went through in Melbourne in late 2014 and early this year.
And then there's stage three, the sour turn which happened in Sydney, wherein the star is shown to have feet of clay after all, over which he puts his trousers on one leg at a time like everyone else.
In romantic terms, it's like the first time someone catches out the love of their life doing the wrong thing, and it isn't pretty.
He may have finished equal with Hugh Bowman in the points score to determine the rider of The Championships at Randwick, but Moreira didn't ride a winner, and that's the moment the jilted media declares him a fraud - he wasn't the messiah, he was just a man, on a horse, at Easter.
It's a dance as old as Australian sport itself but the good news is all Moreira needs to do is go back and ride a winner at the spring carnival and the flowers and chocolates will be out again.
Mark Shean favourite to replace race caller Darren Flindell
The jungle drums continue to beat regarding the replacement for race caller Darren Flindell, who rushed off to take up the position as Sydney's main commentator just before The Championships.
Mark Shean, the Sydney caller on-track and for the now defunct TVN racing television channel, is reckoned to be the man most likely to fill the void. In addition to Shean being an outstanding race caller we would suggest he is also the best form analyst calling races anywhere in the world.
He's certainly the only one we know of who has been a successful professional punter for a significant number of years.
