In Top company: Noel Mayfield-Smith’s ‘giant-killing’ three-year-old
Trainer Noel Mayfield-Smith reflects on the brilliant but brief career of 2003 Caulfield Guineas winner In Top Swing.
The inaugural champion of the celebrated, now ‘stallion-making’ Golden Rose in 2003. An emphatic winner of the G1 Caulfield Guineas two starts later, who left outstanding three-year-olds the calibre of Exceed And Excel and Elvstroem to flounder in his wake.
But for all his obvious abilities, In Top Swing was a galloper firmly in the ‘underrated’ class. Underrated by punters and bookmakers alike whilst he raced, who conspired to send him off at double figures in six of his 12 starts. And underrated by pundits since, with the chestnut son of Beautiful Crown largely overshadowed by the Redoute’s Choices, Lonhros and Weekend Husslers of the Guineas honour roll.
For trainer Noel Mayfield-Smith – then Hawkesbury-based, now at Coffs Harbour – it’s a familiar scenario, but one that he has come to embrace, if not use to his advantage.
“Absolutely he was underrated,” he told Asian Racing Report.
“If you have a look at some of my other really good horses over the years, like Landsighting and Famous Seamus, they probably fall into the same category and it’s because you’re deemed ‘unfashionable’ and essentially not up to the standard to be able to train those types of winners, so people don’t want to know about it.
“But I can tell you this,” Mayfield-Smith continued with an ominous shift in tone.
“At Breakfast with the Stars on the Tuesday before the Caulfield Guineas, he ran the quickest last furlong on the course proper of the entire session. Nobody seemed to take much notice but we were very confident as a result. And we did have something on him at 20/1 in the Guineas, and rest assured it was no fluke.”