Time off for Tassie stars

TASMANIA’S star gallopers Mystic Journey and The Inevitable are both taking time off after enduring tough campaigns interstate.

The latest chapter of The Inevitable’s journey to the top ended on Saturday at Rosehill in Sydney. The Inevitable finished 12th of 16 and was six lengths astern of Kolding in the $7.5 million Golden Eagle after a horror start to his day.

A truck breakdown meant the pint-sized gelding had to be unloaded at a service station and walked around in 30Cplus heat while waiting for a rescue vehicle to arrive and take him to the racetrack.

While the Scott Bruntontrained gelding appeared relaxed and calm once he settled into his stall at the track, it was obvious once the race started that it had taken a lot out of him.

“He wasn’t the same horse that won the Silver Eagle and I’d say the drama he endured getting to the track had an effect on his performance,” jockey Nash Rawiller said.

But even if the horse had not been stressed before the race, he had a torrid run that comprised buffeting that Rawiller likened to a pinball being flicked from side to side and no matter where the rider aimed him the gaps kept closing.

“The horse seems to have come through the ordeal unscathed, so we just accept it for what it was and move on,” Brunton said. “That’s racing, and we live to fight another day.”

Mystic Journey has been in the paddock for the past five days as part of her recuperation from an arduous campaign that culminated in the Cox Plate at Moonee Valley last Saturday week in which she finished a gallant fifth.

The Adam Trinder-trained mare won first-up and then placed second in the Group 1 Makybe Diva before following up with a luckless fifth in the Group 1 Turnbull Stakes.

Trinder said the four-yearold mare’s main mission next campaign would be to defend her All-Star Mile crown that she won in March this year.

Tasmanians could get to see these two amazing athletes competing against each other on Tasmanian tracks in the Sky Stakes over 1200m in late January and again in the Thomas Lyons (1400m) on Hobart Cup day on February 9.

If that eventuates, those races would no doubt act as great drawcards for both meetings, with the Sky Stakes to be run as a stand-alone feature on a Wednesday night in Launceston on January 29 and the Thomas Lyons run on Hobart’s new track 11 days later.