Five things we learned – Golden Slipper Day – J-Mac’s record, Arrowfield’s four-timer, a Slipper triple play, a curse banished and Jigsaw
On a rare Golden Slipper day where the headline race didn’t take centre stage, it was a record-breaking jockey who stole the limelight on what was also a brilliant day for Arrowfield, a return to the pinnacle for Marhoona and another off-script success for Cindy Alderson.
J-Mac is the undisputed king
James McDonald has carried a few nicknames along the way to becoming Australasia’s most successful Group 1-winning jockey. J-Mac, Superfreak and now the debate over whether he assumes the ‘GOAT’ title from Damien Oliver.
Whatever label you want to put on him, and whoever you wish to compare him to, he is simply lengths ahead of his current rivals in the saddle. Instead of being distracted by the prospect of breaking Oliver’s record of 128 Group 1 victories, he stepped up and just smashed it out of the park.
It helps that he rides champion horses, but as Lizzie Jelfs said on Seven’s broadcast, he has earned the right to ride such stars as Autumn Glow, Aeliana and Autumn Boy.
He did have to dig a little deeper than he might have liked on Aeliana, but the other two were comfortable as you can be sitting on board a 500kg animal going 70kmh. He joked afterwards about returning to the dairy farm, but you know the next milestone, perhaps 200 Group 1 wins, is firmly in his sights.
Call him what you want, but just enjoy the ride.
Arrowfield’s autumn day out
Autumn Glow has given John Messara and the Arrowfield team plenty to look forward to over 11 unbeaten starts. When you go and spend $1.8 million on a filly, you need her to be good, but the fact that Chris Waller uttered the ‘c’ word, champion, shows you the esteem in which the unbeaten four-year-old is held.
The choice of the Queen Elizabeth or the Doncaster as her next run is a fascinating one for both Messara and Waller. They faced a similar will-they-or-won’t-they decision about another possible Queen Elizabeth contender in 2019. The decision was made that The Autumn Sun wouldn’t tackle Winx in her farewell that year, now seven years later it is a choice over whether his star daughter will do the same.
But while a one-time seven-figure yearling by one of your resident stallions clocking up a third Group 1 win is a good day, it was just one of four Group 1 wins by the progeny of Arrowfield stallions at Rosehill on Saturday.
The Autumn Sun had a Group 1 double thanks to Autumn Boy in the Rosehill Guineas, Castelvecchio’s Aeliana won the Ranvet and then to round things off, Snitzel’s Marhoona won The Galaxy. One-time Arrowfield resident Manhattan Rain also produced the winner of the William Reid Stakes.
Stratum’s sneaky triple play
Guest House’s Golden Slipper victory was a huge result for his syndicate of owners, his trainers Mick Price and Michael Kent Jnr, and his first-season sire Home Affairs.
He will no doubt be among the most keenly sought stallion prospects in the land, with a price tag in excess of $20 million, returning a potential windfall many times what he banked in prize money on Saturday.
But a little shout out for his damsire, the late Stratum. He won the Slipper himself in 2004 for Paul Perry – future champion sires Snitzel and Written Tycoon were left in his wake – then produced a Slipper winner in Crystal Lily with his first crop from Widden in 2010.
It may have taken 17 years, and nearly a decade since his premature death, but Stratum now has a Slipper as a broodmare sire, with his daughter Flamboyant Lass the dam of Guest House.
It’s a rare achievement in Australian racing for a horse to feature in all three roles. The only other sire to do it in recent times was Flying Spur, the 1995 Slipper winner who sired the 2007 winner Forensics and was the damsire of 2008 victor Sebring.
The supposed Slipper curse
Much is made of the subsequent record of Golden Slipper winners on the racetrack in recent times. However, last year’s winner Marhoona has elevated herself above discussions about a curse with her victory in The Galaxy on Saturday.
She became the first Slipper winner to go on and win a Group 1 race as a three-year-old since She Will Reign won the 2017 Moir Stakes. Others to have done it since 2010 include Pierro and Sepoy.
Credit is due to Michael Freedman for getting her back to her best third-up this campaign. And she wasn’t the only Group 1 juvenile from last season to step up against the older horses at Group 1 level on Saturday. Last year’s Blue Diamond Stakes winner Devil Night was a monster run when third in the William Reid Stakes.
Cindy Alderson – Throwing out the book
Every logical racing thought in your mind tells you that if you are debuting a horse in January of his two-year-old year then you can’t expect him to be winning Group 1 races at seven.
But at every step of his career, Jigsaw has defied convention, and now he has built a quite remarkable six-win running streak that includes two Group 1 races and around $1.9 million in prize money.
Saturday’s win in the William Reid Stakes was the biggest payday of his 39-start career, and the first time he’d ever backed up after seven days. It’s hard to believe you can find uncharted waters with a horse of such experience.
But Alderson has just continued to back her horse, and his jockey Logan Bates to get the job done. Bates has ridden Jigsaw seven times for six wins, including a trip back to his home country to New Zealand to win the Railway Stakes in January.
On Saturday, he took the evergreen sprinter to the front from a wide barrier and let the others worry about luck. Where to from here? Why wouldn’t you just keep on rolling the dice?
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