The spotlight was on Australia last weekend, where New Zealand’s sprint queen Imperatriz (#5 from #6, +68pt) regained her place in the world’s top five on Saturday [Nov 11] as she recorded the eighth G1 win of her stellar career.
The brilliant five-year-old mare ran out a dominant winner of the six-furlong Darley Champions Sprint on the final day of the Melbourne Cup Carnival at Flemington as she scored by a half-length over Buenos Noches.
Trained by Mark Walker (#22 from #29, +83pt) for the powerful Te Akau Racing team (stays at #7, +60pt), Imperatriz’s career record now stands at a formidable 17 wins from 23 starts. She has won six G1s in 2023 – no other horse has won more than four – and would be unbeaten during the calendar year but for the short-head she went down to Artorius in the G1 Canterbury Stakes in Sydney in April.
Unsurprisingly, Imperatriz is now rated the #1 overseas target for Royal Ascot next summer – as Nick Smith, the track’s director of racing, explained. “She goes straight to the top of the list,” he said.
"She's really exciting and looks a reasonably straightforward horse – she’s the ideal type. It's definitely one step at a time but there has been some interest expressed.”
Winning jockey Opie Bosson (#36 from #45, +53pt) added: “I would love to see her go to Ascot and show the world what she can do. She is a top-class sprinter and has just beaten a strong field there.”
Elsewhere on the same card at Flemington, Pride Of Jenni (#78 from #163, +120pt) completed a rare double with her second G1 win in the space of eight days. Having landed the Empire Rose Stakes a week earlier, she followed up with another runaway win in the Kennedy Champions Mile under expat jockey Declan Bates.
Royal Ascot has also been mentioned for the six-year-old, who mastered a strong field in the A$3m contest.
Former world #1 jockey James McDonald (stays at #3, +15pt) landed his third G1 win at the carnival on Atishu (#100 from #271, +153pt) in the TAB Champions Stakes.
Japan’s big race of the weekend was the G1 Queen Elizabeth II Challenge Cup for fillies and mares at Kyoto racecourse won by rapidly improving three-year-old filly Brede Weg (#116 from #1076, +393pt), who justified favouritism in a 15-runner field.
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