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Why Ninja protest dismissal was the "right decision"
Connor Scanlon • January 18th, 2026 12:45 pm
Torque To Be Sure completed an impressive maiden victory on Saturday, winning the $3 million Magic Millions 3YO Guineas in his 11th career start.
However, the win didn’t come without controversy for the Matthew Dunn-trained gelding.
With 150m to go the heavy favourite Ninja made his move down the outside, but soon bumped into Torque To Be Sure, slightly hindering the favourite’s run.
Ninja couldn’t make up the ground to run down the son of Shamus Award and ended up losing by 0.76 lengths.
A protest ensued, but was dismissed, splitting the opinions of racing fans and pundits alike.
When speaking on RSN’s Correct Weight, the trainer admitted that he believes the right call was made by the stewards to not overturn Torque To Be Sure’s victory.
“I was confident - the margin was three quarters of a length, and there needs to be a hell of a lot going on to overturn placings with that sort of a margin,” Dunn said.
“But you never know, and in a race of that stakes, I did feel a bit sick while we were waiting for the decision, to be honest.
“Of course I'm going to say they made the right decision because I was on the good end of it, but I think in all reality there was certainly a bit of a shift, but not enough to overturn a three-quarter length margin.”
When reflecting on his three-year-old’s performance, Dunn was very pleased that his horse was able to break his maiden in a $3 million race.
“He was great, wasn't he?” the trainer exclaimed.
“He's always shown a high level of talent and raced at a high level through his short career.
“It's a good way to win a maiden in a race worth 3 million, isn't it?”
