Pride and joy
Stanberry revels in Sweet Majesty’s upset win, anticipates positive season
HAVING endured a rocky patch with Sweet Majesty at the back end of last season, trainer Edward Stanberry is now happy that his highly thought of mare is back to her usual competitive self with more scope for improvement.
Stanberry’s sentiments came shortly after Sweet Majesty
finished tops in a three-year-old and upwards Non-restricted Overnight Allowance field by one and a half lengths to land the Allan E “Billy” Williams Memorial trophy over 7 furlongs (1,400m).
Though the victory at odds of 29-1 may have come as a bit of a surprise to many, Stanberry believes it was always on the cards, as one of Sweet Majesty’s
three wins from 16 starts last year came against similar opposition over the same distance in August.
In that event, then at the non-winner of four races level, Sweet Majesty (Soul Warrior – Bitter End) won by a mere half length, as runner-up Positive ID
gained with every stride before the wire came.
Since that win, the five-yearold bay mare, who Stanberry described as among his pride and joy, was out of sorts in her seven races between September and December last year, finishing seventh, third, fourth, fourth, sixth, fifth and sixth — failing to add another win to her tally which was complemented by two third-place finishes earlier in the year.
However, Saturday’s (January 21) dazzling seasonal bow was a good indicator that Sweet Majesty is once again heading in the right direction, leaving Stanberry optimistic about her prospects for the remainder of the year.
“She is a well-bred horse, she had a few tough races where she didn’t do as well as we expected, but I did a lot of work with her for this race because this horse is my pride and joy. She was there for me in the Guineas and the Oaks and so, I rate her really highly and she shows that she is still improving a lot,” Stanberry said in a post-race interview.
“So I’m always confident in her and her performance was excellent. We will just see how she comes out of the race and prepare her for the next one which we hope will bring about another good performance. I think she has a lot of potential for the 2023 season,” he added.
After being taken to task at exercise since the sixth-place finish behind Perfect Brew on December 27, Sweet Majesty
entered the Allan “Billy” Williams feature contest as one of those with fresh legs in her favour and as such, was expected give a good account of herself.
Sweet Majesty was expected to face much competition from Jason Dacosta’s Billy Whizz, Michael Marlowe’s Positive ID and Spencer Chung’s Race Car, but the former and the latter turned out to be a no-show at the end.
Piloted by Paul Francis, the Royalty Racing Stable-owned Sweet Majesty was expectedly held off the early fractions set by Billy Whizz (Robert Halledeen), with Big Big Daddy (Dane Dawkins) and Daddy Jones
(Youville Pinnock) in tow, flashing past the five-furlong mark.
Leaving the half-mile Billy Whizz gradually opened up, before The Good Witch (Roger Hewitt) joined while approaching the stretch run.
When they got there a number of horses were spread across the track, all aiming to get first run on the field, but it was Sweet Majesty
that burst through the pack and pulled away at the furlong pole to finish tops, giving her trainer and jockey their first win for 2023.
She won ahead of Marlowe’s fast-finishing pair of Marquesas
(Oshane Nugent) and Positive ID (Reyan Lewis) with Crimson
(Raddesh Roman) in fourth.
The winning time was 1:27.2, behind splits of 23.3, 47.0 and 1:13.0.
Stanberry lauded Francis for getting the job done as was expected.
“I prepared her well for this race so I had her as a winner from the start. I told the jockey ahead of the race to put her in the pace and then once she goes in front, you will win. So we weren’t worried because I know once she straightens, she will be right in front and going away just as she performed,” Stanberry noted.
Francis also revelled in the victory.
“I am the one that programmes her right throughout so I knew she was very fit and ready for this race and wanted to go longer and she got the job done. I guess we will just have to wait and see how far she goes from here,” he said.