Defending champ won’t be back to defend her All-Star Mile crown

A Tasmanian All-Star Mile champion has been ruled out of defending her title due to injury, but there still remains a Tassie hope.

Trainer Adam Trinder poses with Mystic Journey during a media call at Flemington Racecourse in Melbourne last year. Picture: AAP/VINCE CALIGIURI

STAR Tasmania mare Mystic Journey has been ruled out of contesting the upcoming All-Star Mile owing to a soft tissue injury.

Mystic Journey was expected to resume racing in feature races in Tasmania and or Melbourne as part of her lead-up to her defence of the All-Star Mile crown she captured Victoria in March last year.

Her trainer Adam Trinder sent the four-year-old mare to the Ballarat Equine Clinic last month to attend to a soft tissue injury in her near foreleg but in the end connections have run out of time to have her ready for another attempt at winning the $5 million All-Star Mile that she won so easily last season.

Jockey Anthony Darmanin rides Mystic Journey last year. Picture: AAP/VINCE CALIGIURI

Trinder confirmed the mare was back in the paddock and will be given ample time to recover fully, and plans to race in Tasmania and Melbourne in the early autumn have also been abandoned.

“I advised Victorian stewards that we will not be proceeding with the mare’s campaign to the All-Star Mile and that she is officially withdrawn from contesting that event,” Trinder said.

“We simply ran out of time for the summer and early autumn, so we have done what’s best for the mare, however, we haven’t discounted other events later in the autumn.”

Mystic Journey took all before her last season winning the Group 1 Australian Guineas for three-year-olds and followed up with a brilliant win in the inaugural All-Star Mile at Flemington.

She resumed this season with a convincing win in the Group 2 Lawrence Stakes and went on to tackle Group 1 events in the spring and ended her campaign with a game fifth in the W. S. Cox Plate.

The mare has won 11 of her 17 career starts for almost $3.4 million in prizemoney.

With Mystic Journey out of play for this year’s All-Star Mile, Tasmanians should get behind the Scott Brunton-trained Mandela Effect that would be a serious winning chance should he gain enough votes to make his way into the prestigious event run over 1600m at Flemington on March 14.

The All-Star Mile is a race like no other in Australia, with the fans choosing most of the horses that compete.

With a winner’s cheque for $2.25m and an overall prize purse of $5m, it is officially the richest mile race in the world and the only one that has the bulk of the field chosen by the public.

The top 10 ranked horses at the close of voting are guaranteed a place in the field with the balance chosen at the discretion of Racing Victoria.

Mandela Effect is in 16th place with 1282 votes but he will probably need at least 3500 votes to make it into the top 10, so Tasmanians need to vote before the cut-off time of noon on February 16, with a leaderboard blackout put in place from 10pm on February 14.

If Mandela Effect makes it into the top 10, everyone who votes for him has the chance to win $250,000, which is the prize that goes to the honorary owner ambassador of the winner of the race.