Journey ready to go again
Our spring star back from a spell and primed for Guineas assault
STAR Tasmanian three-yearold Mystic Journey returns from a well-earned spell today with Group races in Tasmania and interstate her main missions in 2019.
Her main targets are the Group 3 Bow Mistress Stakes (1200m) in Hobart on February 8 followed by the Group 1 Australian Guineas over 1600m at Flemington just over three weeks later. Depending on how she emerges from those events, her trainer Adam Trinder could take her to Adelaide to contest the Group 1 Australasian Oaks (2000m) at Morphettville in early May.
Mystic Journey ended her winter-spring campaign with wins in the $120,000 Listed Jim Maloney Stakes at Caulfield and the Group 2 $200,000 Aquis Farm Fillies Classic at Moonee Valley, which she won despite having a torrid run three-wide without cover for almost the entire journey.
The daughter of Needs Further was dispatched to the spelling paddock four weeks ago with six wins to her credit from nine starts.
“I’m standing with the filly as we speak and it’s quite clear she has done really well during her break,” Trinder said. “She comes back into work tomorrow and, if everything goes to plan, she will tackle the Bow Mistress in Hobart and then head to Victoria.”
After the filly won the Fillies’ Classic at Moonee Valley, most pundits assumed she would go on to tackle the Sandown Guineas over 1600m in which she would most likely have started favourite but Trinder chose to bypass it.
“I gave her a track gallop on the grass at Mowbray a week before the Sandown Guineas and she didn’t gallop as well as she did before she took on the 3YO Classic, so we sent her to the paddock. She galloped well but just not as well as her previous gallop.”
Trinder also confirmed the Night Cup and the St Leger as Bidirectional’s main missions this season. Bidirectional, a last-start winner over 1600m in Launceston, showed staying promise last preparation, but his trainer has been realistic in his assessment of the son of West Quest.
“Bidirectional is probably a couple of lengths below what he needs to be to head to the major cups in Tassie, but he won the Night Cup last season but failed in the Launceston Cup then ran third in the St Leger, so we will aim him at the two races he was competitive in this time around.”
Trinder had a clean-out of his stable about six months ago to concentrate on the 24 yearlings he and his clients purchased last season and he says a few are likely to show in the early two-year-old feature races in coming months.