Five horses are locked in for The Everest but for the remaining seven slot holders, it seems there is a lot more to play out before settling on a 2025 runner.
Two global racing superpowers will learn more about the strength of their homegrown Everest challenge when Wodeton and Tempted clash in a potential audition for a slot in the $20 million race.
The three-year-olds will meet for the first time since filling the minor placings in last season’s Golden Slipper when they contest the Group 2 Run To The Rose at Rosehill on Saturday.
Besides likely favouritism for the $1 million Golden Rose going on the line, best-case Everest plans for Coolmore and Godolphin will also be at stake.
The recognised world leaders as breeding and racing conglomerates, Coolmore and Godolphin, have yet to taste success in the race as slot holders.
Coolmore did share in the ownership of Yes Yes Yes, the 2019 winner for Chris Waller Racing and since that year, five homebreds have represented Godolphin with Bivouac delivering the best result when runner-up in 2020.
“The Godolphin team, they’re very philosophical and don’t make any decisions on the hop,” Tempted’s trainer Ciaron Maher told The Trek To Everest.
“But after her run on Saturday, we’ll see how she comes through it and make a plan on the back of that.
“The (Coolmore Stud Stakes) would be attractive to her, but if she was impressive, I would assume they would consider the other race (The Everest).”
Five Everest slots have been filled and Hong Kong's magnificent sprinter Ka Ying Rising is front and centre of just about everything connected to the race.
He stifles pre-post betting as much as his arrival in Australia will control the narrative.
On a broader industry scale, Ka Ying Rising will be good for business.
But for the owners of horses not directly aligned to one of the 12 slots, Ka Ying Rising’s presence is most likely complicating negotiations involved in completing an Everest deal.
Trying to make a case for horses on the periphery isn’t going to be easy and getting a deal done is unlikely to be a straightforward exercise in 2025, thanks to the horse who tops Timeform’s latest world rankings with a mark of 135.
THE FREAK IS BACK! 😳
— HKJC Racing (@HKJC_Racing) September 7, 2025
Everest-bound Ka Ying Rising toys with his opposition, becoming the first horse to win the HKSAR Chief Executive's Cup twice with @zpurton for David Hayes... 🏆🏆#SeasonOpener | #LoveRacing | #HKracing pic.twitter.com/72fu9dNEE0
The sentiment that this year’s Everest is a foregone conclusion now that Ka Ying Rising has taken to a new campaign of racing where he left off, adds a layer of complexity for those pitching up for a start.
It is a position Troy Corstens, the co-trainer of Moir Stakes winner Baraqiel, is starting to come to terms with as he plots a spring course for the sprinter who has been nursed all the way through to a Group 1 level despite injuries.
“I've had a couple of little conversations with some slot holders, nothing in-depth,” Corstens told Straight Talk.
“I think it's a very unique year. I reckon that with Ka Ying Rising coming, it's made it so basically everybody thinks that they're racing for second.
“I disagree. But I think everybody's just sitting back, making sure that they've got their I's dotted and their T's crossed before they lock anything in because this year, it is so important to get that right.”
According to those familiar with how some Everest deals have unfolded, owners of horses perceived as making up the numbers can be at a severe disadvantage at the negotiating table.
There will be different strategies this year. Mindsets have changed.
In essence, it is the slot holders looking to recoup most of their buy-in who will have the whip hand in this scenario.
It costs $700,000 a year to become a slot holder, a sum which coincidentally is the prize money allocation for Everest runners finishing seventh to last in the 12-horse field.
“Usually, the further you finish down the course, the greater percentage you surrender to the slot holder,” one owner of an Everest runner told The Straight.
“And I was quite comfortable with that because you don't run in good races to run 10th … and if you do, you don't really deserve anything.
“So we were trying to negotiate deals where it was more loaded up the top and we were quite happy to hand the slot holder back his money if we finished in the second half of the field.”
Corstens says he understands why slot owners are holding off as long as possible to select their runner.
“They're very clever guys who have got these slots and they don't want to just hand them away,” he said.
“And if they are just racing for second, they want to make sure that they get second right.”
And that may become a sticking point for those who are new Everest negotiations. The ones on the outside looking in, like Corstens and Nathan Bennett, the public syndicator of Baraqiel.
“I know that the studs have got their slots and so do the trainers and all those sort of big players … we need someone to give the little guy a go,” Bennett said after the Moir.
Baraqiel will get another chance to impress when he runs in the Group 1 Manikato Stakes under lights at Moonee Valley on September 26.
The weight-for-age sprint will be a pivotal race three weeks before The Everest.
Of more immediate interest will be the Rosehill meeting where Godolphin has Silver Slipper Stakes winner Beiwacht opposing Tempted in the Run To The Rose and newly announced Everest slot runner Joliestar returns.
Joliestar will occupy the Chris Waller Racing slot and she resumes against fillies and mares in the Sheraco Stakes, a Group 2 race in which she was beaten into the minor placings as an odds-on favourite last year.
She subsequently finished midfield in The Everest and Golden Eagle but returned a better horse as a late-season four-year-old with Group 1 wins in the Newmarket Handicap at Flemington and the Kingsford Smith Cup at Eagle Farm.
The Straight News Desk
In Melbourne, there is a case to be made for the Poseidon Stakes matching the Run To The Rose for depth as a Listed contest for three-year-olds.
The 1100m sprint features Legacy Bay, an unbeaten gelding who has been locked in for a three-start campaign planned to culminate in the Coolmore Stud Stakes at Flemington on the first day of the Melbourne Cup carnival.
Nevertheless, Legacy Bay has a Giga Kick vibe about him as a lightly raced sprinter with an X-factor and the Poseidon, won last year by subsequent Everest placegetter Growing Empire, might provide a gateway for a spring detour that will lift the profile of his sire Ole Kirk even further after the Vinery Stud-based stallion secured first-season honours in 2024/25.
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