One of New Zealand’s modern-day horse training greats gets his shot at the classic that has
always eluded him at Flemington today.
But Mark Walker admits he has a better chance of winning the A$1 million ($1.14m) Empire Rose Stakes with Damask Rose than he does the Victoria Derby with Azazel.
Remarkably for a trainer who has tasted enormous success in three countries, Walker has never trained the winner of any Derby.
“I finished second in a Singapore Derby and the best chance I had of winning the New Zealand Derby was a filly called Zarzuela, who finished fourth,” says Walker.
“We thought she would win it until [rain] hosed down the hour before the race and ruined her chances.
“Derbies aren’t easy to win, they only had one a year in Singapore and obviously the same in New Zealand.
“This horse [Azazel] looks a real Derby type and he will handle the 2500m on Saturday better than most.
“But the whole race might come down to whether the favourite Observer stays the 2500m.
“If he does he might be too good because he has looked very smart, maybe too smart.
“Often those really brilliant horses look like they are going to win it at the clock tower [200m mark] then the hit the wall so I think most of us [rival trainers] have to hope that happens to him.”
Observer jogged home to win the Moonee Valley Vase last Saturday and being by English stallion Ghaiyyath, who once set a Newmarket track record of 2m 25.89s winning the Coronation Cup over 2400m, you would think he has stout enough bloodlines to stay today’s Derby distance.
But Azazel has no shortage of staying blood pumping through his veins either, being a good old-fashioned New Zealand type of Derby horse by Rich Hill Stud’s Melbourne Cup-winning stallion Shocking.
A graduate of NZB’s Ready To Run sale for $140,000 this time last year, Azazel won the Geelong Classic last start and has another expat Kiwi on board today in jockey Mick Dee.
Walker will also have 90-1 chance McWoody in the Derby.
Walker, who spends much of his time running the Cranbourne side of Te Akau’s transtasman operation, thinks Damask Rose is his best chance of starting Melbourne Cup week with a win today in the Empire Rose.
The winner of the Karaka Million Three-Year-Old and NZB Kiwi last season, Damask Rose has been luckless in all three Victorian starts this spring but looks to be in the right Group 1 today.
“She is very well and ready to run a strong 1600m and drawn nine, she should get clear air when she needs it,” he explains.
“There are some very good mares in there like Pride Of Jenni and Fangirl but they aren’t getting any younger, so this looks our chance.”
The Empire Rose, named after the equine amazonian who won the Melbourne Cup for New Zealand in 1988, also contains last season’s NZB Filly of the Year in Leica Lucy, so could prove an important marker for the real depth of our classic crop.
Today’s Derby Day meeting starts a Melbourne Cup week with few genuine New Zealand-trained horses given winning hopes, but there will still be huge interest in the A$2m Coolmore Classic for the three-year-olds, which can turn colts into A$20m stallion prospects.
But for many punters on both sides of the Tasman, their focus will be split between Flemington and Randwick.
The A$10m Golden Eagle for four-year-olds has quickly become one of Australia’s most biggest races and today it may contain Australia’s most exciting horse.
Autumn Glow (R8, No 14) in unbeaten in seven starts and has world-class X factor, so she is one of the main reasons champion New Zealand jockey James McDonald is skipping his beloved Derby Day to ride in Sydney instead.
McDonald has a sky-high opinion of the mare part-owned by John Messara, of the Messara Report fame, and even in a deep field she looks a good bet at anything above $2.
The Golden Eagle also contains last season’s NZ Derby winner Willydoit.
Also at Randwick, Kiwi-owned sprinter Jimmysstar competes for a mammoth bonus in the A$3m Russell Balding Stakes after his huge third in the Everest last start.
Closer to home, the focus is on the $150,000 Sarten Memorial at Tauranga, which will be moving day for the three-year-olds: the ones who race well today get a ticket to the Guineas races at Riccarton, the ones who don’t might get the next few weeks off.
Michael Guerin wrote his first nationally published racing articles while still in school and started writing about horse racing and the gambling industry for the Herald as a 20-year-old in 1990. He became the Herald’s Racing Editor in 1995 and covers the world’s biggest horse racing carnivals.