Yes it’s Royal Randwick, Day 2 of The Championships with the running of the Group 1 The $4m Gr1 Longines Queen Elizabeth Stakes of 2000m. Our eyes will be firmly set on the champion mare Winx to make it 17 consecutive race wins and her 12th Group 1 success.
Dressed in the highest Sydney Carnival fashion and being entertained at Victor Chandler, Catalina, China Doll in Little Sydney, we plan to also make a profit on fellow Group 1 events the Schweppes Sydney Cup, James Boag’s Premium Australian Oaks and Coolmore Legacy Stakes.
Winx has come into the Championships the winner of 20 races from 26 starts and over $10.4 million in prizemoney with consecutive victories in the George Ryder Stakes, Chipping Norton Stakes and Apollo Stakes.
Trained by Chris Waller at Rosehill and with Hugh Bowman as her regular jockey Winx won the WS Cox Plate for the consecutive year earlier in the season plus the Caulfield Stakes and George Main Stake. She won The Star Doncaster Mile at The Championships last year.
In December Winx was rated 130 on the Longine’s World’s Best Racehorses for Turf, and joined Black Caviar as only the second Australian horse to receive the same 130 benchmark. She was the World’s Equal Leading Older Female in 2015 and Australian Horse of The Year in 2015-16.
A $230,000 graduate of the 2013 Magic Millions Gold Coast Yearling Sale from the Coolmore Stud draft, Winx was bred by Fairway Thoroughbreds and is a half-sister to the Group 3 winner El Divino from the stakes winning mare Vegas Showgirl, by Al Akbar.
Her sire is the Dubai World Cup winner Street Cry, by Machiavellian, who is also the sire of US Horse of The Year in Zenyatta, Kentucky Derby winner Street Sense, Melbourne Cup winner Shocking and Whobegotyou the Caulfield Guineas winner.
La Bella Diosa, the NZ 1000 Guineas winner, is very much on course for the James Boag’s Premium Australian Oaks of 2400m although finishing a disappointing 9th in the Vinery Stud Stakes when floundering on a heavy 9 track. She won the Surround Stakes on her first start in Australia but ran last in the Coolmore Classic when found to have a breathing inflammatory ailment.
Trained by Mandy and Matt Brown at Rangiora in New Zealand, La Bella Diosa became her sire So You Think’s first classic winner in capturing the NZ 1000 Guineas at Riccarton in November. She had previously won the listed Barneswood Farm Stakes and the Canterbury Belle Stakes.
So You Think, by the English and Irish Derby winner High Chaparral, is stamping his stock as classic 3yo’s. In addition La Bella Diosa, his son Inference won the Randwick Guineas and ran second in the Rosehill Guineas, Northwest Passage won the Tasmanian Derby, Gold Brush the Matamata Breeders’ Stakes and So Si Bon running third in the Rosehill Guineas.
So You Think was Champion Australian 3YO of 2009-10 and Older Miler in winning the WS Cox Plate twice and LKS Mackinnon Stakes. In Europe he won the Prince of Wales’s Stakes at Royal Ascot, the Irish Champion Stakes and the Tallersalls Gold Cup twice.
La Belle Diosa descends from a very strong New Zealand family with her Travis Stakes winning dam Star Affair, by Star Way, also being the dam of Group 3 winner Solid Billing and stakes winner Thy.
Her granddam The Grin, by Grosvenor, was NZ Broodmare of The Year with The Jewel being a duel Group 1 and dam of Group 3 winner The Diamond One, and Gr3 winner The One-Never Look Back.