Five things we learned from Saturday – Coolmore Classic edition
In our first edition of our new post-Saturday column, we look at the five things that Saturday’s racing taught us, highlighting James McDonald’s pending milestone, a looming fifth title for a stallion star, the respective rollercoasters of Bjorn Baker and Tony Santic and a new candidate for Australia’s best maiden.
It’s Mac Time now – But what do we call the record?
With no fewer than five Group 1 races at Rosehill this coming Saturday, the scene is set for James McDonald to become the most successful Australasian Group 1 jockey of all time on one of Australia’s great racedays.
The Kiwi-born and raised star has now moved to 128 elite wins, within one of Damien Oliver’s Australasian record of 129, thanks to his sixth Australian victory of the season. He will get a host of chances to equal and maybe break that mark next Saturday.
McDonald is in extraordinary form, banking four winners on Saturday, including the Group 1 Coolmore Classic on Lazzura, to go with his career-equal best six winners the Saturday prior. That means he has had 10 winners from his last 17 rides.
There will be various attempts to frame McDonald’s likely achievement this week, but as a Kiwi-born jockey who has ridden 30 of those Group 1 winners outside Australia, it is neither an Australian record, nor a record by an Australian.
Oliver’s record for Australian Group 1 winners is 125, while McDonald is on 98 in his adopted country, the same number as another champion Kiwi, Jim Cassidy.
How do we label it then? Simply, it’s the most Group 1 winners by an Australian or New Zealand jockey.
A Snitzel renaissance
Arrowfield champion Snitzel left us midway through last year but could he be about to write an extraordinary new post-humous achievement on his record?
Snitzel currently comfortably leads the Australian sires championship with $16.6 million in progeny earnings, $3.1 million clear of former barnmate The Autumn Sun, heading into a huge month of racing in Sydney.
He has more Australian stakes winners than any other stallion, 11, and is equal with Street Boss when it comes to individual Group 1 winners. three, thanks to Lazzura’s win on Saturday.
Even more remarkably, he has not relied on one or two stars to get him there. In fact, his highest earner this season, Lady Shenandoah, has yet to win a race this season.
It has been six seasons since he captured the last of his four consecutive champion sire tables, but is he was to win his fifth, he would be just the eighth sire in history to do so, and the first since his grandsire Danehill, whose ninth and final title came in 2004/05.
The last Champion Sire to win the title posthumously was Street Cry in 2015/16.
Bjorn Again – A Golden lining
Bjorn Baker can usually find something to laugh about in any situation. But the circumstances around Magic Millions week in January tested his usually sunny and confident disposition.
Warwoven was scratched on race morning as a short-priced favourite for the $2 million race, while Paradoxium, who had been early favourite for the Classic, had been waylaid by a bout of pneumonia in the lead-up.
Two months after that difficult week, Baker will saddle up two of the top three in betting for the Golden Slipper, with Warwoven joining Paradoxium in the field thanks to his win in Saturday’s Pago Pago Stakes.
The upside is massive, not only for Baker, but for Cunningham Thoroughbreds, which owns both horses and who could be set for a huge payday should either colt win and frank their considerable stallion value.
It has been a big week for patriarch Gary Cunningham, who now finds himself on the Racing Queensland board. The family, meanwhile, are still looking for a buyer for their Ridgmont property in the Hunter Valley.
Turn-back Tony
Tony Santic has had plenty of experience in his share of ecstatic mounting yard celebrations, but few, apart from the obvious, would match the revelry after Big Wigs returned victorious in the $1 million VOBIS Showdown at Caulfield on Saturday.
Just weeks after the death of Makybe Diva, the famous colours, which blend Santic’s Croatian heritage and his love of Australia, were to the fore as the colt by Gold Standard swooped home to grab a narrow victory.
The joy was shared among the large ownership group, who donned the Makybe colours and led a party-like atmosphere as the two-year-old colt returned to scale.
Santic, who sat back and absorbed it all, had paid just $20,000 for Big Wigs dam Nooks And Crannies as a broodmare back in 2020. The Denman mare already produced the handy stakes-placed mare Cavity Bay and now has a two-year-old colt with over $600,000 in the bank.
The best maiden in Australia?
It’s an often-discussed topic in racing circles, who is the best maiden in Australia? The Bob Peters-owned and Team Hawkes-trained Federalist continues to put his hand up for that title, by running big races but not winning.
The blueblood I Am Invincible gelding, the first foal from Peters’ champion Arcadia Queen has yet to greet the judge first in eight career starts but did compete in three group 1 races in his first six starts.
He was edged out in a Pakenham maiden first-up this time in and then found himself in the Group 2 Phar Lap stakes on Saturday, where was a fast-finishing second again, beaten less than a length by short-priced favourite Sixties.
There’s a win for him, surely, somewhere between a Pakenham maiden and a Group 2 at Rosehill.
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