Rich Enuff went to the top of the three-year-old pecking order on Sunday but he wasn't the only mover in the classic division on a big weekend of racing.

As it so often does, the Caulfield Guineas is shaping as the definitive race in the first half of the season for the country's top three-year-olds.

On Friday night Almalad staked his Guineas claims, taking out the Stutt Stakes in good fashion, and running to a new peak Timeform rating of 119 with the promise of more to come.

Less than 24 hours on and that performance had been matched.

Shooting To Win, who had finished narrowly ahead of Almalad in the Golden Rose, put up what was arguably an even better performance when romping away with the Stan Fox Stakes at Rosehill.

Shooting To Win also came out of his race rated 119 but the timefigure and the manner in which he put away his rivals points towards him being the better of the pair at this stage.

The Guineas may not be on the agenda for Sweynesse, with the Spring Champion his intended target, but he was similarly impressive in winning the Gloaming Stakes earlier on the Rosehill card.

Similarly to Shooting To Win, several key indicators pointed to Sweynesse being better than the bare form of his win on Saturday, sectional analysis suggesting he could be up to a good deal more than his 116p if and when it is required of him.

Come Saturday night things were getting tight at the top of the Timeform’s three-year-old tree for 2014/15 but by Sunday evening we had a clear leader.

Rich Enuff set the track alight for the third straight run in the Guineas Prelude, his blistering performance returning a Timeform rating of 124+ and placing him firmly at the top of his generation.

Success in the Guineas looks a mere matter of staying the mile for Rich Enuff who matched Helmet as the highest rated Prelude winner in the past 20 years.

It is also worth noting that a rating of 124 was good enough to land champion three-year-old honours last season, though, at this early stage, the current crop is shaping as a stronger group and it looks as though a higher figure will be required to take that honour this time around.

Interestingly this group was slightly below average at two and several of the promising three-year-olds that are starting to emerge were not at the top of their generation last season.

This may be a growing a trend. The average number of runs for our good two-year-olds has declined in recent years and so we are more likely to see rapidly improving three-year-olds in the spring time.

Looking forward this three-year-old crop becomes very interesting from a punting perspective.

With last season’s four-year-olds thin on the ground, opportunities will open up for the three-year-olds in key races later in the season.

Last seasons three-year-olds only managed to win three Group 1 races against their elders, but we can expect this year’s group to win closer to the 20-year average of 11 open-age races this season.

On Sunday’s evidence Rich Enuff looks one of the likely candidates to add to that tally.