Cup carnivals crossover day could belong to the Girls in Green.
Today
is the day Australia’s greatest week of racing overlaps into New Zealand’s, with Cup week in Christchurch starting hours before Melbourne Cup week ends on the high of Champions Day.
While Melbourne Cup week is rightly so special to Australians, its end is only half time for hardened Kiwi punters who can look forward to six days of racing in Christchurch containing New Zealand Cups of all three codes for the last time.
For those who participate in both, whether in the two host cities or from afar, fatigue of the body, mind and wallet is assured.
The payoff for such exertions is seeing some very special equines, and today the absolute stars of the show at both Riccarton and Flemington could have something in common: the green and white colours of racing and breeding giants Yulong.
Yulong’s Australian business started collecting trophy mares a few years ago and now has 60 Group 1-winning ones, the best known of those being dual Cox Plate winner Via Sistina.
That champion mare is hot favourite to win the last major race of Melbourne Cup week, the A$3 million TAB Champions Stakes, in which she meets Kiwi galloper Pier.
Via Sistina won this race last year after a Cox Plate demo job and, while she didn’t win the Cox Plate as easily two weeks ago, she finds herself in a weaker Champions Stakes.
With some key rivals missing today and others like Mr Brightside and Ceowulf choosing to head to the Lexus Champions Mile a race earlier at Flemington it is hard, maybe impossible, to make a logical case for a rival to beat Via Sistina.
Because of that both the Champions Mile and the Champions Sprint (Race 6) could overshadow Via Sistina’s race, with the Mile a stunner that also includes Pride Of Jenni, Stefi Magnetica and Treasurethe Moment.
The latter is yet another Yulong-owned Group 1 winner, while they have even another in Magic Time in the Sprint, which could be some sort of record for one owner in three consecutive Group 1 races on the same programme in Australasia.
But wait, there is more, as they say.
Because Yulong now also own half of Well Written, the exciting Cambridge filly who attempts to win the $600,000 Barneswood Farm NZ 1000 Guineas at Riccarton at just her third start, purchasing their share in her just last week.
She is just $1.80 to achieve that feat after two stunning wins, including a seven-length romp in the Soliloquy Stakes at Ellerslie last start.
It was a strange race, with Well Written trailing her stablemate stablemate Little Black Dress, the horse outside the leader running off on the home bend and presenting the winner with the best possible run, so everything went Well Written’s way.
While all that was happening the two favourites, Tajana and Lollapalooza, were back in the second half of the field and never got into a challenging position.
But while they could be excused for not finishing closer, the reality is Well Written was sitting third on a hot speed yet still galloped her last 600m faster than every other horse in the race.
Ideally drawn at barrier 3 to sit handy and then launch down the long Riccarton straight today, the $1.80 for Well Written might be overs as even if Lollapalooza sits right behind her the new glamour girl of New Zealand racing could be impossible to catch.
Rival trainer Shaune Ritchie thought so, he decided to bypass today’s race with one-time favourite Tajana, preferring to take on the boys in next Saturday’s 2000 Guineas instead.
While trainer Stephen Marsh is trying to not annoint Well Written the new chosen one of Kiwi racing before she earns it, he was lost for words when trying to describe her trackwork last Saturday.
For a man who trains reigning Horse of the Year in El Vencedor, and seems to have a decent vocabulary, Marsh being lost for words means you can assume Well Written must have burned down the Cambridge straight pretty damn fast.
The first day of Cup week in Christchurch has a Ladies Day feel to it, with the Guineas complemented by the Windsor Park Breeders Stakes featuring last year’s 1000 Guineas winner Captured By Love, who is suited by the weight scale if not her draw.
The northern meeting at Pukekohe features the Listed Legacy Lodge Sprint in which the girls, led by I’m Unstoppable, are again favoured to beat the boys.
So it could be a huge weekend for the girl gallopers on both sides of the Tasman.
Especially the ones wearing green.
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.