Australian racing superstar Pride Of Jenni returned to winning ways with a typically bold front-running display to turn the tables on old rival Mr Brightside at Moonee Valley on Friday night [Sept 27].
Opening up a lead of ten lengths by halfway in the G2 Feehan Stakes, the hugely popular seven-year-old re-established herself in the world Top Ten on Thoroughbred Racing Commentary’s Global Rankings, holding on by a comfortable length and a half – in a time of 1.34.67 not far off the track record for 1,600 metres (metric mile).
Having been beaten on her first two starts in the current season, Pride Of Jenni (#6 from #17, +85pt) was scoring for the first time since her spectacular runaway romp in the Queen Elizabeth Stakes at Randwick in April.
“I knew she’d just come on from that last run, and she was just on it,” commented jockey Declan Bates. “She was just really ready for a Moonee Valley race where she could just roll along and skip away.
“I asked a lot of her today but I knew around here on this ground we were up against a champion in Brightside, and I had to do what I had to do to beat him. And look, I’ve just got an absolute champion of a horse here.”
What is more, it seems she will be campaigned like a champion, too, with the King Charles III Stakes (former George Main over a mile at Randwick) and Cox Plate (over a mile and a quarter at Moonee Valley) possibly both on the agenda later this month. They are both G1 events, only a week apart – the first in Sydney and the second in Melbourne.
Although the G1 Manikato was somewhat overshadowed by its supposed supporting event on Friday night’s card, the six-furlong contest provided the platform for 20-1 shot Southport Tycoon (#39 from #279, +257pt) jumped up the Aussie sprint ranks as he touched off Growing Empire in a one-two for Pride Of Jenni’s trainer Ciaron Maher (stays at #13, +37pt). The winner won last season’s Australian Guineas – again, in a surprise result as he was 18-1 for that Flemington contest.
There are big plans for star three-year-old Broadsiding (#27 from #90, +122pt) after he edged out Godolphin stablemate Traffic Warden to land his third G1 success on his seasonal debut in the Golden Rose at Rosehill. The Caulfield Guineas is next on the agenda – with a potential crack against his elders further down the line in the Cox Plate for the son of rising sire Too Darn Hot (#18 from #23 among turf sires).
A weekend of Breeders’ Cup preps in the States produced a slew of hitherto unheralded winners – starting with former Argentine-trained Subsanador (#54 from #252, +227pt), who got the best of a three-way finish to the California Crown at Santa Anita.
They labelled it the ‘inaugural’ running of the $1m contest, but in reality it was a revamped Goodwood/Awesome Again Stakes, with an inflated purse. Still, it was a good field and the celebrities certainly showed up for the occasion – including the likes of Beyoncé, Sharon Stone, Jay-Z, Cher and Alison Janney.
As for Subsanador, he’s a multiple G1 winner in South America, the five-year-old was scoring a first top-grade success for veteran trainer Richard Mandella (#22 from #25, +35pt) and carried the blue-and-gold silks of Wathnan Racing (#24 from #46, +88pt) – a familiar sight in Europe now, but not yet quite so much in the States.
As part of the Breeders’ Cup Challenge, Subsanador earned a ‘Win and You’re In’ spot to the $7m Classic. “That’s the plan,” confirmed Mandella.
“We saw a lot of courage yesterday,” he added, speaking on Sunday. “He was in tight. We hadn’t had him in that position before, so it was really nice to see him fight that hard.”
On a big day for the ever-burgeoning Wathnan team, Hit Show (#70 from #191, +143pt) got up late to claim the G2 Lukas Classic.
Also likely for the BC Classic is Tapit Trice (#22 from #97, +162pt), last-to-first winner of the G2 Woodward at a muddy ‘Belmont at the Big A’ meet, while Far Bridge (#38 from #154, +172pt) looks the top US contender for the BC Turf after denying War Like Goddess a hat-trick in the G1 Joe Hirsch Turf Classic.
Johannes (#29 from #60, +64pt) gets a ‘Win and You’re In’ spot in the BC MIle after odds-on justifying favoritism for his sixth stakes success in the G2 City of Hope Mile at Santa Anita. The Tim Yakteen-trained four-year-old is unbeaten in four this year, among them the G1 Shoemaker Mile; he’s won seven of his last eight overall.
• View the latest TRC Global Rankings for horses / jockeys / trainers / sires
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• Unlike traditional methods of racehorse rankings, TRC Global Rankings are a measure of an individual’s level of achievement over a rolling three-year period, providing a principled hierarchy of the leading horses, jockeys, trainers, owners and sires using statistical learning techniques. Racehorse rankings can be compared to similar exercises in other sports, like the golf’s world rankings or the ATP rankings in tennis.
They are formulated from the last three years of races we consider Group or Graded class all over the world and update automatically each week according to the quality of a horse’s performances and their recency, taking into account how races work out.