3 minute read
Mares impart influence on the first Group 1 of the season.
Australian racing fans are now used to mares being our most identifiable stars of the track.
In the first 150 years of Australian racing the biggest names were all male, highlighted by the fact the fact the first five equine athletes inducted when the Australian Racing Hall of Fame was inaugurated were all male.
Since then, our three household names – Makybe Diva, Black Caviar and Winx – have all been female.
In a sign of the times, the girls have also exerted their influence over the $1 million Group 1 Winx Stakes in recent years.
Between 1976 and 2014, What Can I Say (1998), Sunline (1999) and Private Steer (2004) were the only mares to upstage the boys in the 1400-metre weight-for-age event, but the girls have won five of the past eight.
Winx won three in a row – 2016 to 2018 – following on from her stablemate Royal Descent in 2015, while another Chris Waller-trained mare, Verry Elleegant, won in 2020.
They are among 23 mares to have run in the Winx Stakes since 2015 and mares have also run second three times – Foxplay, Verry Elleegant and Fangirl – while Invincible Gem and She's Ideel ran third.
So, of the 89 starters in the Winx Stakes since 2015, mares have supplied 25.84% of the runners but 62.5% of the winners and 41.66% of the placegetters.
Mares will again play a big part in this year's Winx Stakes with six of the capacity field of 16 female, including one of the leading fancies in Fangirl.
The race formerly known as the Warwick Stakes has been good race for punters since Pablo's Pulse's win at 500/1 in 1987, with 26 of the past 34 winners starting $7.50 or shorter including 15 favourites.
The Epsom Handicap looms as the likely spring goal for Fangirl, but a host of others, most notably Zaaki and Francesco Guardi, will be directed to the headline Melbourne races.
The Cox Plate is the spring major the Winx Stakes has had the biggest impact on with Winx (three times), Anamoe, Sunline, Might And Power and Super Impose all taking it in en route to Cox Plate success in the past 30 years.
Verry Elleegant kicked off her spring campaign in each of the years she won a major, but Descarado is the only other Caulfield Cup winner to have come through the race since 1992, while Saintly is the only other Melbourne Cup winner.
