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Group 1 winner Behemoth and Greysful Glamour are the early leaders

Votes have started to come in for All-Star Mile (1600m) contenders after the polls opened on Friday. The two early leaders are Group 1 winner Behemoth (All Too Hard), who is trained by David Jolly and Mark Newnham’s Villiers Stakes (Gr 2, 1600m) winner Greysful Glamour (Stratum). 

Other nominations include Russian Camelot (Camelot), Arcadia Queen (Pierro), Verry Elleegant (Zed), Melody Belle (Commands), Probabeel (Savabeel), Sir Dragonet (Camelot), Mystic Journey (Needs Further), Ole Kirk (Written Tycoon) as well as defending champion Regal Power (Pierro). 

Voting closes at midnight on February 14 with connections of the 81 nominated horses running their own campaigns to get their horses into the final field via a top ten on the leaderboard. Those ten and then five wildcard runners will make the field for the race, which will be run at Moonee Valley on March 13. 

“The official opening of voting marks the start of what is always one of the most fascinating and exciting aspects of The All-Star Mile,” said Greg Carpenter, RV’s Executive General Manager – Racing.

“Over the past two years we’ve seen a number of owners and trainers come up with very clever and creative ways to drum up support for their horses, so I’m really looking forward to seeing what this voting period brings us.

“While we received slightly fewer nominations this year compared to 2020, with 23 Group 1 winners and 27 $1 million-plus earners the sheer quality of entrants would have to be the highest we’ve ever received, and so it won’t be an easy task for voters to make a decision of which horse they choose.

“We’ve seen previously that the voting period can inspire great parochialism, so we would encourage our friends in New Zealand and sports fans in every state of Australia to get behind their equine heroes and vote them into what promises to be another exceptional edition of the world’s richest mile at The Valley on March 13.”