I AM getting used to early-morning alarm calls on Saturdays thanks to the exploits of the remarkable mare Winx in Australia. She was in action again last week in the Group 1 Colgate Optic White Stakes at Royal Randwick and made the get-up-early effort worth it with her 20th win in a row.

It was not without a scare along the way, which is becoming her thing almost as much as winning, and she looked right up against it 500 metres out when under the pump and still with only one rival behind her. But she quickened like the star she is – putting in a sub 11.0s penultimate 200m – to score a shade cosily in the end.