No more barriers to success when the race has been run and won Guelph and Kerrin McEvoy hold the challengers at bay in the Thousand Guineas at Caulfield. Simon O'Donnell knew plenty about the power of serendipity and its fickle cousin - in sport and life - even before he chose a career in horse racing. If Lady Luck doesn't follow you to the bathroom on raceday morning, the ex-cricketer and cancer survivor said at Wednesday's Caulfield Cup barrier draw, you might as well stay home. The raffle for starting gates in Saturday's big race left many feeling as though fortune had deserted them, but at least they're still in the hunt. Eight of the nine runners in the Thousand Guineas turned up hoping for a miracle on Wednesday, but Kerrin McEvoy and Guelph duly took chance off the table. "Well ridden, just too good, just too good," said Darren Weir, trainer of second-placed May's Dream, who watched the feature race perched on a stair rail at the back of the mounting yard. Briefly, as his filly loomed 200 metres from home, he rose from his haunches. Yet this was a reflex born of false hope, and he was soon on his rear again. "When the second horse come at her, she kicked," trainer Peter Snowden said of a horse he called "very tradesman-like," a description so understated it could be an insult. If anything else had come at her, she would have kicked again. Weir told May's Dream's owners he'd take running second to a champion, and did so with a sincere smile. The entourage included 78-year-old Worrall Dunn, who a decade ago owned the horse's mother, She's Archie, which left Weir uttering the same cheery lament after it was beaten by only Makybe Diva in the first of the great mare's three Melbourne Cup wins. On Wednesday, Dunn greeted jockey Nick Hall with a shake of his walking stick and a tongue-in-cheek sledge, "You useless bastard!" Hall responded that if Dunn had been in the saddle, May's Dream would have won. In truth, nothing but the most horrendous luck was going to gazump Guelph. By jumping straight to the front and meeting a sapping wind head-on, McEvoy ensured he would have only himself to blame if Sheikh Mohammed's star filly failed to record a seventh win - and sixth group1 - at her 10th start. "It just takes bad luck out of the equation," he said of a move that was slightly surprising and very decisive. Weir noted, "Kerrin just took all the tactics out of it." Even when you're the jockey chosen by royalty and sitting atop a supposed sure thing, doubt can appear at your shoulder. McEvoy admitted he'd "changed hands a few times" behind the barriers; he was conscious that all eyes were on him, not least those of the constitutional monarch of Dubai. It's very different to ride a horse like that ... It can be demanding mentally, for sure. A barrier draw is all luck and no tactics, and made for a nerve-jangling ceremony beneath a windswept marquee behind the main stand, where connections of Saturday's 18 runners and three emergencies crossed fingers and uttered silent prayers that their appointed representative would pluck their horse a winning chance. Or perhaps more pointedly, not leave it with next to none. Sad faces were pulled and noses turned up as owners and trainers picked up miniature gold cups to reveal the barrier equivalent of socks and hankies beneath the Christmas tree. This is spring theatre with tangible impact - Hawkspur, one of Chris Waller's four Cup runners, was a drifting favourite after landing barrier 16, but stablemate Royal Descent drew three and was wound in to $6.50. Groans of deflation and cheers of joy invested the lottery with an import of race-already-run proportions, so a dose of perspective was welcome. Nick Williams, on behalf of father Lloyd and on reflection at Fawkner drawing 12, said there were a dozen worse options. Of where the family puts the Caulfield Cup, he offered the rare response of "nowhere"; it is one of the few major racing prizes the Williams family hasn't won.