Royal Ascot: Star sprinter Battaash in mix for Everest slot after King’s Stand Stakes triumph
England’s best sprinter Battaash has piqued the interest of slot-holders in the $15m TAB Everest after scoring a big win at Royal Ascot.
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England’s best sprinter Battaash could be in the mix for a possible start in the $15 million The TAB Everest at Royal Randwick later this year.
It is understood there is some Everest slot-holder interest in Battaash, a brilliant winner of the Group 1 King’s Stand Stakes (a1000m) at Royal Ascot on Tuesday.
Battaash, regarded as the fastest horse in Europe, is owned by Sheikh Hamdan Al Maktoum who has extensive Australian racing interests.
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Trainer Charlie Hills spent time learning his craft with the Hayes family at Lindsay Park many years ago and has an understanding of Australian racing.
TAB Fixed Odds price assessors have rated Battaash at $15 in early betting for The TAB Everest on October 17. Chris Waller’s flying machine, Nature Strip, remains the $4 favourite.
Battaash is regarded as a short-course specialist with all his major wins coming at five furlongs (a1000m) so the 1200m of a high pressure The Everest would be a test of his stamina reserves.
Back with a bang! Battaash gets the win in a cracking running of the Group 1 King's Stand Stakes! pic.twitter.com/GdOlECIW7e
— Sky Racing (@SkyRacingAU) June 16, 2020
“If Battaash was to come out to Sydney for The TAB Everest he would create plenty of interest as he is obviously an outstanding sprinter,’’ TAB’s Andrew Georgiou said.
“But because he has not ticked that 1200m box, we are inserting him at $15 in early betting on The Everest.’’
Battaash finally won the Group 1 King’s Stand Stakes at Royal Ascot yesterday, avenging his successive seconds to the now-retired Blue Point in the feature sprint in 2018 and 2019.
“I’m relieved but so proud he’s done that today after being second in it twice,” Hills told the English press at Royal Ascot. “As soon as the gates opened today he was on his A-game, you could see, and he was going to be hard to beat.’’
Hills said his immediate goal was to set Battaash for a historic fourth successive win in the King George Stakes at Goodwood.
$15m TAB EVEREST (1200m)
Royal Randwick, October 17
$4 Nature Strip
$8 Alligator Blood, Bivouac
$11 Classique Legend, Farnan
$15 Battaash, Gytrash, Loving Gaby, Masked Crusader, Pinatubo, Rothfire, Santa Ana Lane, Tofane, Trekking
$26+ others
LATEST BETTING: TAB FIXED ODDS
NO SPRING IN GAL’S SHARK
Te Akau Shark is in danger of missing the Sydney and Melbourne spring carnivals due to a rare eye condition that requires surgery.
Owner David Ellis said that dual Te Akau Shark, regarded as New Zealand’s best racehorse, will undergo the eye surgery this week which will delay the gelding’s return to training.
“While spelling, we further investigated an eye irritation of Te Akau Shark’s that we have managed successfully,’’ Ellis said. “Expert international equine eye surgeons, together with our Sydney veterinary team, have decided it is in Te Akau Shark’s best future racing interests to undergo an optic implant surgery.
“His issue is a rare one and the procedure has been scheduled for this week. Obviously this is a disappointing setback but it is necessary that we operate now to ensure a viable future racing career for this wonderful athlete.’’
The Jamie Richards-trained Te Akau Shark had an outstanding 2019-20 season, winning twice at Group 1 level in the BCD Sprint and Chipping Norton Stakes, and finishing third in the Cox Plate and George Ryder Stakes.
Te Akau Shark is currently on the second line of Cox Plate betting at $15 behind $11 equal favourites Almond Eye, Danon Premium, Ghaiyyath, Master Of Wine, Russian Camelot and Verry Elleegant.
FULL HOUSE: $15M THE EVEREST’S LATEST BOOST
Sydney’s spring racing carnival showpiece, the $15 million The TAB Everest, could be run before a full house after all at Royal Randwick this year.
Just a few weeks ago, this scenario seemed remote as a fan lockout meant racing continued before empty grandstands due to the coronavirus pandemic.
But with the infection rate declining and the spread of COVID-19 seemingly under control, it has enabled Federal and State Governments to start easing restrictions.
Prime Minister Scott Morrison announced last Friday that states were working towards rules that would provide sporting stadiums with a 40,000-seat capacity to host crowds of up to 10,000 from July 1.
The Australian Turf Club, which has welcomed back some owners and members at Sydney Saturday meetings in the last two weeks, is now preparing for the public to return to racetracks, albeit in limited numbers, from the start of next month.
With the increasing possibility more restrictions will be lifted in coming weeks, this could mean The Everest, which has attracted huge crowds to Randwick with each running since 2017, will again have close to 40,000 race fans for the world’s richest turf race on October 17.
ATC officials are studying plans to accommodate big crowds on raceday and still adhere to public health orders and social distancing protocols.
LEGEND SLOTS IN
Racing NSW’S website has confirmed Classique Legend as the second sprinter locked into the field for The TAB Everest.
Classique Legend is raced by Hong Kong-based Bon Ho who also owns an Everest slot and barring some unforeseen circumstance, the brilliant grey joins Horse of the Year-elect Nature Strip in The Everest field.
Nature Strip, winner of three Group 1 races this season including the TJ Smith Stakes during The Championships, is back in pre-training and due to return to trainer Chris Waller’s Rosehill stables at the end of the month.
Waller said he will give Nature Strip two lead-up runs into The Everest as he feels the sprinter is at his optimum at his third run each preparation.
“Nature Strip will resume in the Concorde Stakes, have a month into the Premiere Stakes then it is two weeks into The Everest,’’ Waller said. “It’s a similar profile to what he had going into the TJ Smith Stakes.’’
With TAB using its slot to lock in Nature Strip, Waller still has his Everest slot open and may look at some of the stable’s rising three-year-old talent to try and emulate his success with Yes Yes Yes in the big race last year.
SPRING CHANGE
Hall of Fame trainer John Hawkes entered the Melbourne spring carnival programming debate by advocating for the Cox Plate to be run before the Caulfield Cup.
Hawkes said the Caulfield Cup could be run a week later in spring and still remain lead-up into the Melbourne Cup with 10 days separating the two staying races.
Under this proposal, the Cox Plate is run a week before the Caulfield Cup and provide a progression of race distances for Melbourne’s three spring carnival features.
Danny O’Brien is another high profile trainer who is backing the push for the Cox Plate to be run before the Caulfield Cup.
Hawkes said any move to run the Caulfield Cup at the end of November would be detrimental to the race and have a negative impact on the Melbourne and then Sydney autumn carnivals.
Master Of Wine, the classy stayer from the Team Hawkes stable, is back in work as he prepares for a spring carnival campaign which could include starts in all three major Melbourne races.
In early TAB Fixed Odds betting, Master Of Wine is $9 favourite for the Caulfield Cup, $11 equal favourite for the Cox Plate and on the third line of betting at $13 for the Melbourne Cup.
Hawkes also revealed boom young sprinter Masked Crusader and unbeaten rising three-year-old Doubtland are back in light work ahead of their spring carnival preparations.
Masked Crusader is prominent in early betting for The TAB Everest but Hawkes isn’t getting carried away by the hype.
“We will take it as it happens with Masked Crusader,’’ Hawkes said when asked about program plans for the spring.
“He has won a benchmark 78, he is only a restricted horse at the moment so we are not getting ahead of ourselves.’’
HIGH STAKES
Adelong is too good to be racing at this time of year.
The Brad Widdup-trained mare toyed with her opposition at Rosehill last Saturday, scoring her sixth win from just eight starts.
Champion jockeys James McDonald and Hugh Bowman have both ridden Adelong to win in recent starts and they are convinced the mare is a stakes-winner in waiting.
Trainer Brad Widdup, who has placed Adelong expertly this winter, intends to give her a short break now before aiming at the feature mares sprints during spring.
TURNING A PROFIT
Trainer Theresa Bateup’s breakthrough Sydney Saturday win with Monegal was the feel-good story of the Rosehill meeting.
Bateup purchased Monegal for just $3000 as a yearling but three years later, the mare now has six wins from 25 starts for prizemoney of nearly $250,000 – and the promise of more to come.
NOT THE SIZE OF THE DOG
Outback Diva, trained by Richard and Michael Freedman, might be Sydney’s smallest racehorse but she is big on heart and determination.
Standing just 14.2 hands and weighing only 421kg, the mare proved size doesn’t matter with her powerful win at Rosehill.
“She is the smallest horse Michael and I have ever trained,’’ Richard Freedman said. “When she first came to us she only weighed 411kg but now she is nearly five years old, she has ‘bulked’ up a bit and put on 10kg!”
The Freedman brothers had a day out last Saturday with Outback Diva’s Rosehill win complementing a stable treble at Kembla Grange from Shadow Chaser, Duchess and Recondite.
Shadow Chaser was the Freedman stable’s 10th individual two-year-old winner from a crop of 35 two-year-olds this season, an impressive juvenile strike-rate.
SAD END FOR TOP HORSE
Black Heart Bart has run his last race after he bled from both nostrils when unplaced in the Hyperion Stakes in Perth last Saturday.
It was an inglorious finale to Black Heart Bart’s race career as the rising 10-year-old had won 17 races, six at Group 1 level including his upset Underwood Stakes success last spring, earning nearly $5 million prizemoney.
‘I’M NOT GIVING UP’: BROWN EYES MIRACLE RETURN
The doctors are advising him to never ride again. They say it’s a miracle he can still walk.
Corey Brown understands how lucky he is but the champion jockey is not ready to accept the medical opinion just yet.
“It’s not over, not by any means,’’ Brown said. “I would be extremely disappointed if I couldn’t ride again as I feel I still have so much more to offer.’’
But Brown is also a realist. After visiting his specialist a few days ago, he understands his riding career is at the crossroads.
Brown fractured his T7 vertebra in a fall from Lord Arthur in the Queensland Derby 12 months ago. He has two plates and eight screws inserted to stabilise his spinal fracture during the healing process.
“The latest CT scan shows the back still hasn’t mended, there are still a few fractures,’’ Brown said. “The doctor is going to leave the plates in for another three months then the plan is to take the plates and screws out and monitor the injury.
“The best-case scenario is to be on horseback again by January. The worst case ...”
Brown didn’t finish the sentence but what was left unsaid resonated loudest.
At 43, Brown should be at the peak of his riding career and looking forward to another successful decade or so in the saddle.
A naturally gifted and beautifully balanced rider, Brown has achieved so much already during his celebrated career in the saddle.
Brown, a former premier Sydney jockey, has ridden nearly 3000 winners, 49 at Group 1 level including two Melbourne Cups, two Sydney Cups, two Australian Derbies, two The Metropolitans, Victoria Derby, Australian Cup, Epsom Handicap, TJ Smith Stakes and Newmarket Handicap.
But Brown doesn’t want it to end there. He doesn’t want his last race ride to be that fall.
Brown remembers the Lord Arthur incident clearly. He was conscious throughout the ordeal.
Update ✔ï¸https://t.co/dv7q9LZr4C pic.twitter.com/ampoEQKhEx
— CoreyBrown (@Coreyjockey) June 10, 2020
Lord Arthur broke a back leg and fell in the home straight. Brown hit the turf hard. He then acted on instinct, realising the dangers, and moved away from the stricken horse.
“I was worried the horse might have rolled on me so I got up and walked about 5m then lay back down,’’ he said.
Paradoxically, Brown got very lucky and very unlucky all at once.
“After the doctors looked at my X-rays, they said I should not be walking,’’ Brown said.
“They told me when I got up just after the fall it should have severed my spinal cord. I know I’m very fortunate in that respect.’’
Brown underwent surgery where the plates and screws were inserted in his back. A year later and his spinal injury still hasn’t healed.
“When I went to see my doctor a few days ago, because there has been so much time since the fall, I thought we would be getting the plates out and I’d be moving onto the next chapter of my recovery,’’ he said.
“But the bones haven’t mended. Where the plates are, the way it’s placed against my back, it has held a couple of the breaks apart.
“It’s no one’s fault because some of the bones ‘crumbled’ in the fall, they have to knit and I need to grow extra bone in the gaps.
“The concern is that normally after 12 months the bone stops healing. I’ve been taking daily osteoporosis injections to stimulate bone growth and it’s starting to do that but just very, very slowly.’’
The doctors gave Brown two options – leave the metal plates and screws in for another three months and then review the injury again, or undergo spinal fusion surgery.
The latter option would delay any chance of Brown returning to the saddle for at least another 12 months. This was not what the champion jockey wanted to hear.
“Obviously, I went for the three months option,’’ Brown said. “I’m just hoping in three months the bones will have grown enough to have the plates and screws out.
“When the plates come out we have to keep monitoring the injury to the bone to make sure it doesn’t just crumble again.
“I can’t ride with the plates and screws in my back, the doctors will never allow it. One of the screws is right near the spinal cord and if something went wrong it would be catastrophic.
“So, it’s disappointing and very frustrating. It’s not looking great, put it that way.’’
Brown admits the medical advice he was given last week has made him consider what the future holds for him.
The back injury is obviously concerning, the emotional strain, inevitably there are financial pressures, but mainly it is the uncertainty of his situation.
Brown doesn’t have any real ambition to be a trainer, he has thought about other racing industry opportunities including being an owner’s racing manager, and he is in demand as an expert commentator with Channel 7 and other broadcasters.
But Brown is a jockey. He has been riding since he was 15, it’s all he has ever wanted to do.
“It could be worse, I know, I do look at the other side and think what could have been,’’ Brown said.
“I do understand why doctors don’t want me to ride again, they say it is too risky. It’s so disappointing when you are told you can’t do something you love, it’s not easy to accept. But I’m not giving up yet. I want to ride again. There is still some light at the end of the tunnel.’’