Media tart, trainer Bryan Guy, was photographed looking as happy as a carpet snake in a chook coop yesterday afternoon following his colt Regular winning the $150,000 QTIS 600 race for two-year-olds. In another exclusive, Justracing understands the pure silver trophy will be melted down and sold on E-Bay, so watch for that to happen. Regular is part owned by Bryan's wife, prompting the trainer not to tell Justracing, "Well at least it won't be cold shoulder, chips and salad tonight".

Sometimes studying a Form Guide is just not necessary in the challenge to back a winner. Readers who visit this website should be well aware that I often make comments how no punter should ever be constipated. All the positive rot in the racing industry from trainers and jockeys talking up horses, to all the mainstream media garbage that is spoken and written in newspapers and on racing radio and television, through to hopeless administrators, means that everyone who follows racing should have no problem being “regular” all of the time.

And so it came to pass that yesterday at Ipswich there was a $150,000 prizemoney race for 2YO’s. Recently we had one of these QTIS 600 sale restricted races at the Gold Coast and I wrote up how bad the vast majority of the horses were that started in it – and queried how they could possibly be the best of all the eligible horses that were paid up for QTIS 600 in that particular year. Yesterday at Ipswich - again the final field of 19 acceptors, consisting of 14 runners and five emergencies, had more Maidens in it than you’d find in a nunnery. In fact of the 19 acceptors, no fewer than 11 had not won a race anywhere from Marble Bar to Mount Morgan. That equates to 57.89% of the field being Maidens as they headed off to the barriers yesterday, which is surely not a positive sign, given the available pool of 2YO’s that were eligible to derive the field from, yet the powers that be and even some of the trainers and stud masters will tell you that QTIS 600 is the greatest thing since sliced bread - and all this allied rot. There is nothing wrong with the concept of QTIS, but we need to be able to breed some decent horses in Queensland and upgrading our stallions might be a good place to start. For so long Queensland has been merely a dumping ground for stallions that no one interstate wants to stand. History will determine whether any stars will emerge out of yesterday’s QTIS 600 race. Personally I have my doubts.

But every race that is ever run must have a winner and the winner yesterday was a 2YO called Regular and he was one of the 11 Maiden gallopers that accepted to run. Regular had only had one start for what his owner at the official presentation called “a very unlucky second” on debut at the Gold Coast behind Courtz Boy on 21 April over 1200 metres at 9/2.

Yesterday the Bryan Guy trained 12/1 bookies chance Regular staged a titanic struggle up the last 200 metres of the Ipswich straight with the Kelly Schweida trained odds-on $1.80 favourite Discreet and when they hit the line, Regular had a couple of inches margin to spare. However the jockey on the runner-up Discreet, Chris Munce, immediately lodged a protest against the winner on returning to scale, but it was correctly dismissed by stewards. It is my considered opinion that Dan Griffin riding Regular simply outrode Chris Munce and that was the difference in the result. Rather than swing six or seven wide on straightening, Griffin opted to ride for luck waiting on a run through the pack. He looked in strife momentarily on the home turn when he was held up and was forced to restrain his mount noticeably, but with the cutaway rail in place yesterday at Ipswich the horses fanned soon after straightening and Griffin was able to put his mount straight through a gap when it appeared.

Regular is interestingly bred as he’s one of just a handful of foals born to the stallion Mearas before he died. Mearas had been trained during his racetrack career in Sydney by John Hawkes and whilst he didn’t re-write the record books, he was certainly a handy performer. Unplaced at his only two starts as a 2YO, he came of age at three and in three starts as a 3YO in 2006, he managed to win two races, namely the Group 3 Spring Stakes at Newcastle defeating Magic Jet and Teranaba and the Listed Ming Dynasty Quality at Randwick beating Just Mambo and Sermon. Below is the first three generations of breeding of Regular.

Racetrack performances aside, Mearas was a beautifully bred horse. Let me explain why. He was by Danehill’s champion stallion son Redoute’s Choice out of the Marauding mare Eldarin and whilst Eldarin only won three races out on the racetrack of dreams, she had some pretty talented relations, as she was a sister to the Group 1 Oakleigh Plate winner for Lee Freeman from 1996 – Drum. Eldarin was also a full sister to the dam of that wonderful racehorse Grand Armee, a winner of 13 races, including five Group 1’s for Gai Waterhouse – and to Dealer Principal, a Group 1 winner of a Rosehill Guineas for Anthony Cummings. Additionally Eldarin is a three-quarter-sister-in-blood to the top class Hong Kong galloper Absolute Champion, a winner of two Group 1’s in Hong Kong, namely the Hong Kong Sprint and the Chairman’s Sprint Prize.

Born on 2 September 2003, Mearas was retired after his 3YO season and found his way to Basil and Diane Nolan’s Raheen Stud at Gladfield, on the outskirts of Warwick, where he stood for an advertised service fee of $7,700. Official Stud Book records show that Mearas serviced a book of 64 mares in his first season at Raheen. However the stallion obviously had fertility problems, as he has only had five named progeny. Only two of those five, Regular and another 2YO called It’s On The Pocket, being trained out of the Lindsay Gough yard in Brisbane, have ever raced. It’s On The Pocket has only started once and got beaten 10 lengths on debut at Eagle Farm on 7/3/12 when clocking in fourth of nine in the race won by Fun ‘n’ Games.

For his part Regular only came to be with us on Planet Earth, as his mother – the Clang mare Sagre - was so “slow” on the racetrack that the decision was made to retire her. In fact it didn’t take her trainer Bryan Guy very long to work out she had no ability whatsoever, as she only started twice, for a debut eleventh of 14 at the Gold Coast and a sixth of 14 at the same track 14 days later. “She was a very slow horse but we’d had a lot of success with the family so we decided to breed with her”, Bryan Guy told Justracing after the first place prizemoney of $96,000 jumped in yesterday. And when you go into the family he certainly has had “a lot of success with the family”. Whilst Regular’s dam Sagre was as slow as a wet week, others out of her mother Brianza cumulatively earned well over a $1.5 million dollars. When put to Marauding in 1991 the resultant foal, racing as Master Raider, won 10 races and $262,462. Put to Cossack Warrior, Brianza produced Winsted which won 10 races and $143,070. Another Brianza product Motivate (by Splendent) won 13 races and $536,730 and the biggest prizemoney earner of all from the mare Brianza was the enigmatic grey gelding Masai Pride who won 12 races and $670,550. After training Masai Pride, Motivate, Winsted and Master Raider, the latter for only part of his career, Bryan Guy’s success with the family now continues via Regular.

Regular’s mother Sagre has had three matings since she gave birth to him. In 2010 she foaled a colt by Ferocity, in 2011 she slipped a foal by the 2004 Irish born sire Teofilo (by Galileo out of a Danehill mare) - and she is currently back in foal to that same stallion.

Bryan Guy advised Justracing that he’d let the dust settle from the win before deciding where the Mearas colt will race next.

Today around the various websites is more exciting than sideshow alley to a 10-year-old child. On www.brisbaneracing.com.au find out why a former trailblazer jockey Pam O'Neill is still turning heads well into her 60's, on www.sydneyracing.com.au David Clarkson goes for a gallop around the global racing scene, whilst on www.melbourneracing.com.au Matt Nicholls catches up with Michelle Payne who tells him when she intends retiring from her chosen profession.