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By Greg Prichard

Winx’s owners are adamant they won’t second guess their plans for the wonder mare – regardless of how far she might win by on Saturday or how many calls there are for her to race on in the spring.

Two of her owners – Peter Tighe and Debbie Kepitis – outlined the mentality they adopted when it was decided to give the seven-year-old an autumn campaign and said their thinking wouldn’t change no matter what.

The fairytale ending would see Winx win The Agency George Ryder Stakes at Rosehill and then go on to the Longines Queen Elizabeth Stakes three weeks later at Randwick and win that as well to mark a glorious exit from racing.

But her owners have been in this game a long time and know all about the vagaries of racing and because of that they don’t really like to discuss or confirm anything further than the next run.

“We really don’t think about it until after Saturday,” Kepitis said.

“Yep, we’ve got a plan in place, there’s always a plan, but you just don’t know in racing. With animals, with any athlete, it’s a day-to-day proposition.

“It’ll all be looked at after Saturday. She’s done a great job and she’s amazing, so we’ve got to look at what’s best for her, that’s the primary thing.

"So if she goes well on Saturday we’ll look at how she recovers and make a decision then.”

Tighe added: “We don’t want to say ‘definitely’ about anything, because then you risk disappointing people. People know we’ve earmarked a race because it’s the same campaign she’s been on in the past, but who knows?

Re-live Winx's 2018 George Ryder Stakes win

“She might not even get to the Queen Elizabeth. I mean, she might wake up one day with a head cold and we say ‘that’s it’.''

Hopefully that won’t be the case and because decisions on Winx have always been made by the owners, trainer Chris Waller and jockey Hugh Bowman with the horse’s best interests at heart they would have to be terribly unlucky for something to go wrong now.

But Winx is rising eight years old and the time comes for all great champions to be retired.

Very few, in any sport, enjoy the luxury of being able to do it while still at their peak, and affording Winx that opportunity has been a major consideration for her owners all along.

“It was an easy decision after the Cox Plate to let her go for a spell and give us time to digest everything and her time to tell us what she wanted to do,” Kepitis said.

“She indicated she wanted to race again. She may be the same way after this prep, but then you’ve got to be the bigger party and put the horse first.

"She’s doesn’t need to do any more, so hopefully we have a great end to her racing career. You couldn’t ask for anything more than that.”

Tighe said it was their responsibility as owners to take a blinkered approach to the decision-making process and not be swayed by outside opinion or sentiment.

“Some people who might want her to race on would be the first ones to complain if we did that and something went wrong,” he said.

“Once you get older, there’s nothing on this earth that gets better with age. I mean no living being. Every day you live you’re getting one day closer to the end and you can bring that end on a lot faster if you want to live like a fool or push yourself beyond the limits.

“There’s no reason to go further. Yes, it’s a good fireside chat to have, that we could win five Cox Plates, but if you raced her for long enough then eventually she would get beaten and the best thing for her now is to try and avoid that.”

All the fields, form and replays for Golden Slipper Day meeting at Rosehill Gardens