Of Tulloch, he says this: "Bastard of a horse. He'd bite and kick you. He once grabbed a blacksmith who was shoeing him and lifted him a foot off the ground."

Of Kingston Town, he offers this: "You could do anything with him. When we walked past the big Catholic Church on Kensington Road every morning on the way to the track, and then when we walked him in the afternoon, he always stopped and looked at the church. Never missed."

We are speaking to Barker, 81, because of Winx, who at Moonee Valley on Saturday will try to equal Kingston Town's record of three consecutive Cox Plate victories.

"I thought you wanted to talk to me about Kingston Town - not Winx," he says, before adding after some gentle prodding: "You can't compare horses ??? But she [Winx] hasn't beaten nothing good, has she? She wouldn't have beaten none of those horses running around back then. Ming Dynasty, Hyperno ???"

Comparing champion racehorses is about as constructive as comparing champion footballers and cricketers and golfers. A reporter once asked the late opera singer Luciano Pavarotti to rank "The Three Tenors", of which he was one.

"We are not racehorses!" Pavarotti sneered. "You cannot say we are one, two, three! We are virtuosos of our time."

"Miracle" Mal Johnston doesn't like to compare.

He had more success on Kingston Town than any other jockey, including the 1980 Cox Plate when "the black horse" won in Melbourne for the first time.

On Saturday, he will carry the winning Cox Plate trophy across the track to the presentation where the connections of Winx are expected to be.

An aggressive hoop, Johnston missed out on the other two Cox Plate rides because he was suspended.

"I rode for Tommy Smith, so every race was a Cox Plate," he grins. "Tommy never said Tulloch was better than Kingston Town and I'm not saying Winx is better than Kingston Town or Kingston Town is better than Winx. But she's as good as I've seen since the black horse. I hope the mare does it because she's the best I've seen since him. I'm a fan."

Instead of comparing their greatness, Johnston prefers to highlight their similarities.

"She's arrogant, she treats her opposition with contempt - and so did he," he says.

On the Tuesday before the Cox Plate in 1980, Johnston rode Kingston Town at trackwork and then returned to Smith's stables.

"Geez, he run a bit of time," Smith said to him as he got off the horse.

"They will not beat him at this track," Johnston declared.

Until then, Kingston Town hadn't won in five starts in Melbourne, but he'd never raced at the Valley. The camber of the surface, which made the track seem like it was steeping inwards like a cycling velodrome, suited him perfectly.

"He couldn't handle going the Melbourne way," Johnston recalls. "But because of the camber of the track, you could keep him on his right leg. Caulfield, it ran away from you and unless you were used to it, it was very hard to stay on that right leg. After that Tuesday gallop, it was just a given that he would win. I was certain he would win a Cox Plate. A jockey doesn't get to say that very often."

Four days later, Johnston was proven right.

"We're seeing the real Kingston Town today," said caller Bill Collins well before the turn, so inevitable was the result.

'They won't beat him at this track': Mal Johnston salutes on Kingston Town in the 1980 Cox Plate. Photo: Bruce Postle

"I let him down and he just exploded," Johnston says. "He beat some nice horses, too, and run away from them. That's what the mare does. Kingston Town won from 1200 metres to two miles. But from 1400 metres to 2000 metres, I've never seen a horse who would shake the life out of the black horse - but Winx undoubtedly would."

It was Collins' famous call of the 1982 Cox Plate that also highlighted how special Kingston Town was.

"Kingston Town can't win," Collins said calmly, almost dismissively, as the field neared the final turn.

But Collins was wrong. Kingston Town finally got out and flashed home to win his third Cox Plate.

In many respects, the mistake was perfect. Collins was known as "The Accurate One". He was so certain Kingston Town couldn't win but the horse was so good or brave or smart to be denied. He made the best caller in the business look foolish. It added to the legend.

Similarly, Winx has found trouble in big races and still managed to win. In the Epsom at Randwick in 2015, she basically kissed the turf on the turn and still got there. In last year's Doncaster, jockey Hugh Bowman went right and then left, desperately trying to find a run down the straight, before finally finding fresh air and surging away in the final 200 metres.

Johnston was having a beer at his local pub in late August when Winx had her first start of this Cox Plate campaign.

She missed the start in the Warwick Stakes by five lengths. Everyone in the pub gasped.

"Well, she can't win from here," Johnston figured.

Even at the turn, as Winx finally came into the race, he thought there was no chance of her winning.

Scare: Winx misses the start in 2017 Warwick Stakes before recovering to win.

"She'd done too much but then she got up and won and it sat me on my arse," Johnston says. "Not many can do that. People say, 'But, but, but ??? Look at the horses she's beaten'. She's beaten the best horses we have to offer and she makes them second rate. That's what Kingston Town used to do."

Which brings us back to Spider Barker.

As an early four-year-old, Kingston Town developed problems with the suspensory ligaments in his forelegs. Barker's job each day was to fill two 25-litre buckets with iced water and make Kingston Town stand in them for 45 minutes.

"Boss," he once said to Tommy Smith, "who was the better horse: Kingston Town or Tulloch?"

Smith's praise was as high as it gets.

"If Kingston Town had four good feet," Smith replied, "I'd have him the equal of Tulloch."