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It’s the last roll of the Group One dice for Gai Waterhouse at Eagle Farm on Saturday when she attempts to keep an astonishing career record alive.
Waterhouse boasts the longest sequence of Group One wins among Australia’s current training ranks, having trained at least one G1 winner every season since she was granted a training licence in 1992.
She won her first G1 race within months of kicking off her training career when Te Aku Nick won the AJC Metropolitan at Randwick in the spring of 1992.
Her G1 tally in Australia now stands at 139 wins, the last five in partnership with her co-trainer Adrian Bott, to be Australia’s current leading trainer of G1 winners.
Only two legends of Australian racing - her late father Tommy Smith (282 wins in 55 seasons) and his great rival Bart Cummings (268 including two with his grandson James Cummings spanning 60 seasons) - are credited with more Australian G1 wins during their careers.
Behind Waterhouse on the all-time G1 ladder are Lee Freedman (127 including three with brother Anthony), John Hawkes (112 including 16 in partnership with his sons Michael and Wayne) and Chris Waller (101).
The fact that Waller has racked up a century of G1 wins in 11 seasons since his first major success in 2008 points to him overhauling Waterhouse in the next three or four seasons – providing he keeps training in Australia - and ultimately challenging the records of Smith and Cummings.
However the current concern for Waterhouse is ending her G1 drought as she hasn’t tasted success at the elite level since a Brisbane carnival double last winter when English won the Doomben Ten Thousand and Prompt Response took out the Tatts Tiara.
While it’s been another reasonably strong season of black type results for her stable the intensely proud Waterhouse will be devastated if her 28-year run of G1 success comes to an end in Saturday’s $500,000 Tatts Tiara, the fillies and mares feature that brings down the curtain on the Australian G1 season.
Her only chance to keep her G1 sequence alive rests with the imported mare Con Te Partiro after she and Bott elected not to enter last Saturday’s Ipswich winner Ready To Prophet.
Con Te Partiro, a former US stakeswinner, made a winning Australian debut at the Scone carnival in the G3 Dark Jewel Classic on May 11 and has since finished sixth in the G2 Dane Ripper Stakes won by Invincibella at Eagle Farm on June 8.
Con Te Partiro may also be on a last chance as she seeking a valuable G1 win before she is retired to stud.
Invincibella is one of five entries from the Chris Waller stable. They include Prompt Response, who won last year’s Tatts Tiara for Waterhouse and Bott before she was sold and transferred to Waller.
