Transtasman battle treat of the day in Randwick showdown
The heroes of New Zealand’s racing spring may have become the greatest danger to a Kiwi success depending how you view today’s A$3 million TJ Smith in Sydney.
New Zealand-trained mare Imperatriz will look to end the greatest season by our of our sprinters in the Group 1 1200m on the first day of The Championships on what looks certain to be a heavy Randwick.
Trained by Mark Walker and ridden by Opie Bosson, Imperatriz has flown the Kiwi flag proudly in Australia for the past six months and is one of the darlings of New Zealand racing fans.
But there will be some divided loyalties because today her greatest rival is I Wish I Win, who was the centre of a marketing campaign on a scale never seen in this country before when he represented New Zealand in The Everest last October, finishing second.
I Wish I Win is a fairytale horse, too deformed to be sold as a yearling, owned by popular industry leader Mark Chittick and trained by Peter Moody, who would be many New Zealanders’ favourite Australian trainer.
To add to his Kiwi cred today, I Wish I Win will have a new jockey, expat James McDonald, the only rider in Australasia who rivals Bosson for the affection of New Zealand punters.
The irony of being the hero of the New Zealand industry in October to perhaps beating their queen of racing in April is not lost on Moody.
“It is all good fun and an interesting aside,” Moody says with a laugh. “I’m an Aussie married to a Kiwi training a New Zealand-bred horse for Kiwi owners and have your best jockey on. And they [Team Imperatriz] are Kiwis who own and train a Aussie-bred horse who does most of its racing here these days. So people can support who they want. Probably the one they back.”
While Imperatriz has been in remarkable form all season, I Wish I Win hasn’t raced since that Everest second and Moody says that has to favour the mare.
“Logic tells you that we can’t be as fit as she is but the track might help us a bit. We know our horse can win on a heavy and I’m hearing she has, too.
“But I know a bit about training those really fast horses and you find that almost always they are not as good on heavy tracks because they can’t be as brilliant,” says the man who prepared the incomparable Black Caviar.
“So maybe that brings her back to us all. My horse is ready and he will give her a fight.”
Imperatriz’s heavy track form is mixed. She was dazzling winning the Foxbridge Plate on heavy at Te Rapa
18 months ago but below her best in her next two starts on heavy tracks at Hastings and Matamata.
But that was when she had niggling back issues and was being tried at
1400m and 1600m before Walker worked out her back and decided sprinting was her forte, which has taken her from being a very good horse to a sprinting superstar.
The TJ Smith will be the highlight of a Sydney programme that also features the Derby and a deep Doncaster but so much today will depend on just now how much rain Randwick cops.
Back in New Zealand, the Trentham meeting not only hosts the last Group 1 of the season, but five black type races, and again the weather will be a factor, most crucially in the $450,000 Manawatu¯ Sires’ Produce.
Velocious is trying to become the first horse to win New Zealand’s juvenile triple crown, having already captured the Karaka Millions and Sistema Stakes, but the wetter Trentham gets, the worse off she will be.