![Warwoven and Rachel King demolish their rivals in the Group 1 Golden Rose at Rosehill. [Bradley Photos]](https://betsy.b-cdn.net/wp-content/uploads/2026/09/2366325.jpg)
The Magic Millions curse that befell Bjorn Baker this year is quickly being forgotten as Golden Rose winner Warwoven and Paradoxium prove their star qualities this spring.
Baker always thought he had two Group 1 colts and he is halfway to proving it, but even he had doubts back in January.
“Paradoxium won [the Magic Millions] at Wyong and we felt he was just going to go to the Gold Coast and do the same,” Baker recalled.
“Then he got real bad travel sickness on the way up there, and I didn’t know when or if I would see him again in the stable.
“Then we had Warwoven become the favourite for it and have a knee problem leading a couple of days out [from the Magic Millions], and the vets didn’t let him run.
“We would have been happy to have run him, but we just had to cop the decision.
“It wasn’t a happy time.
“But adversity is about how you cope with it, but more importantly, how you come back from it and both these colts have excelled.”
Warwoven and Paradoxium would return to win Golden Slipper trials before being down the track in the World’s richest two-year-old race.
But as three-year-olds they are unbeaten.
“With what they went through you would have thought they would get to the Slipper,” Baker said.
“But Warwoven won the Pago Pago and Paradoxium, the Todman, which just show their constitution and ability, and they have come back better.
“You have to pinch yourself in some ways, but we always knew they were smart.”
Warwoven is now the Run To The Rose and Golden Rose victor and heads to Caulfield Guineas as the $2.20 favourite with the Cox Plate also on the agenda.
It hasn’t surprised Baker.
“We thought when we bought him that 1400m and mile would be where we would see the best of him,” Baker said. “He had so much ability as a baby, he was able to match it with them early, and now we are seeing the horse we knew we had.
“He will be even better at the mile, I believe. His best might be ahead of him.”
Paradoxium won’t get his chance at a Group 1 until next month’s Coolmore Stud Stakes and will kept up to the mark in the Roman Consul Stakes at Randwick on the weekend.
“He is flying,” Baker said. “Together they haven’t been beaten in the spring, so it is exciting.
“I can’t really say one is going better than the other.
“It was much different with him because travel sickness can be much different. You don’t know what it has taken out of them until they race again. He came back and won, but it took a bit out of him.
“He had that break and has just got better and better, I couldn’t be happier with him at home.”
