In what proved a headline-writers dream Shiraz continued to mature with age returning a narrow new peak in taking out the Aurie’s Star Handicap at Flemington.

In winning the Aurie’s Star Shiraz returned a Timeform rating of 110. Right where both his recent form and the recent history of the race expected him to be.

Shiraz has been quickly improving this campaign, landing a gamble first time out at Rosehill and then going right on with the job when winning impressively at the same course before being sent south to Melbourne.

That second Rosehill win earned Shiraz a Timeform rating of 109+, a plus that went to work on the weekend but could only squeeze out another pound in beating the honest Play Master.

Play Master is something of a rarity in that he continues to go about improving at the age of six and now seven, his second-placed effort on the weekend returning a new peak Timeform rating of 109.

From a historical perspective Shiraz sits a few pounds below recent winners Tiger Tees and Temple of Boom who both ran to 113 in winning the race.

That level of performance highlights an interesting and somewhat strange trend.

Since the Aurie’s Star was upgraded from listed to Group 3 level in 2010 the race appears to dropped slightly in quality.

The last horse to come through the race and make a significant impact in the spring was All American in 2009 who ran second in the Aurie’s Star before progressing through to win the Emirates Stakes over Cup Week.

All American split the 116-rated Mic Mac and the 123-rated El Segundo, the latter a horse that used the race as a springboard to Group 1-winning spring campaigns in 2005, 2006 and 2007.

Racing And Sports’ measure of field strength (RSFS) arrives at a mark of 108.6 for the 2015 Aurie’s Star. To put that into context the Missile up the highway in Sydney returned an RSFS of 116.4. That measure would place Shiraz in the battle for third/fourth had they opted to run in Sydney.

The fourth-placed finish of Zaratone in the Missile hints at this being a correct assessment with Zaratone finishing alongside Shiraz earlier in the campaign.

Although Shiraz continues to look progressive, and 110 may not ultimately see him right out, success at the top level looks fairly unlikely for him at this stage, and so the Aurie’s Star continues to look more like a listed race at the back of the winter than a Group race at the start of the spring.

One that looks worth a spot in the blackbook through the Aurie’s Star is Zebrinz who was quickly improving at the back of last campaign and returned here looking ready to pick up where he left off.

Zebrinz tracked Trust In A Gust through but when it was clear that Trusty was not at the top of his game and going nowhere fast he was left with no tow into the race and was left to make his run solo.

There was plenty to like about the way that he found the line for a horse that is going to be best suited up to a mile. He’s currently rated 94p and looks ready to build on that figure this spring. A race like the Sale Cup at a mile may prove ideal for him later in the campaign.

Earlier on the card Charmed Harmony won a sit-and-sprint in good style and looks set to take his chance in the Memsie in three weeks time.

A current Timeform rating of 111 is not going to be good enough to have him winning there, but he’s being winning with something to spare and might be able to improve enough to pick up a place there.

He’s certainly worth a throw at the stumps with his high-percentage racing pattern and he’s a boon for the race as he provides an able bunny for the good ones to chase.

One of the tricky variables in the spring is the lack of tempo in the early Group 1 races. We want to see our Group 1 horses running Group 1 time and Charmed Harmony might drag that out of one or two of them.