Stewards will push the line that Bowman's elbow came up in a fashion outside his usual riding style at around the 500 metres in the Epsom as Blake Shinn on Kirramosa came around and put him in a pocket. It was a surprise to Bowman, who was aware he might have had a careless-riding charge to answer from the incident but seemed to know nothing of the allegation over his elbow use when questioned.

The incident happened so quickly it could have been almost an instinctive action. Bowman had ridden the perfect race on Winx before being caught off-guard by Shinn's lightning move. Kirramosa was there before he could react and the pair got onto Sons Of John's heels within strides as the pressure went on from behind before the leaders sprinted.

Bowman said he was getting rebalanced and was anticipating what would happen in the next couple of strides when Winx checked off Sons Of John's heels. But the video from a camera on the home turn doesn't paint the premier jockey's actions in a good light.

Shinn said he didn't feel the elbow during the race and when pushed about it by stewards after watching the film, he stuck strong to his view. Bowman pointed out how easily Winx won despite the severe check, but that won't count when stewards consider a charge centred on the elbow.

It illustrates how competitive Sydney riding ranks are at the moment.

James McDonald's careless-riding charge on Calliope was another case where a gun jockey on the best horse found himself in an awkward position with no way out other than forcing a run.

Magic day for Godolphin

What a difference 12 months has made for Godolphin. A year ago John O'Shea was being asked about a lack of star quality and runners. On Saturday he had five winners, including Magic Hurricane in the Metropolitan Handicap. It was one of the biggest individual days for Godolphin anywhere in the world.

It doesn't get much better than this for the global racing operation. All five winners carried the Darley brand and on show was its next stallion in Exosphere, the hulking sprinter with an exhilarating style and fearsome turn of foot.

Complacent, the stayer that came back from near retirement, and Oaks filly Ambience added to the mix after Calliope turned in one of the more remarkable wins over 1000m in her debut in the Gimcrack Stakes.

"The good thing for us as a team, was the first four winners were home-bred and nearly everyone at Darley and Godolphin has had something to do with this day," Darley boss Henry Plumptree said.

The exciting thing is the depth to the team at Crown Lodge, Agnes Banks and Flemington. The next couple of weeks should bring more success.

"I'm lucky to be in the position to be part of this team and our horses and systems are firing," O'Shea said. "To have a day like that at Randwick is something you dream about."

Costly time

TAB's Glenn Munsie labelled Saturday "punters' nirvana" as eight of nine favourites won at Randwick, ripping tens of millions of dollars from bookmaking firms.

"It is worst result in the history of our fixed-odds operation, it amounted to a multimillion-dollar loss," Munsie said. "They just rolled favourites into each other and if that wasn't bad enough, the favourite won the AFL and Cyril Rioli was our only loser in the Norm Smith [Medal]."

The Randwick Big6 paid $39.60 less than the quaddie at $54.60 as punters labelled the last six favourites. The only non-favourite to win was Ambience, which was backed from $11 to start $3.60.

Rob Waterhouse said it was a strip out for the Sydney ring and one corporate bookmaking tout said, "it was that bad I'll be lucky to have a job on Monday".