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Quality Godolphin sprinter Viridine has appeared late on the scene for Friday night’s group 2 Australia Stakes at The Valley following the extension of nominations.
Just five horses were among the original entries for the $200,000 race but four more were added on Tuesday morning, including Viridine, who was one of the sprint stars of the early spring carnival in Melbourne last year with wins in the Bletchingly Stakes and Regal Roller Stakes.
Viridine, who has a domestic rating of 108 to be easily the highest rated horse in the Australia Stakes, is also down to trial for Hugh Bowman at Randwick over 900 metres on Thursday.
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Leading trainers Ciaron Maher and Dave Eustace are to release some of their expected autumn stars on Tuesday with Cox Plate champion Sir Dragonet headlining a quality line-up at the weekly jump-outs at Caulfield.
Sir Dragonet is listed to contest the first jump-out against seven rivals, including stablemates How Womantic and Southern France.
Sir Dragonet took the Cox Plate last spring at his Australian debut before finishing sixth in the Melbourne Cup after failing to stay the 3200-metre trip.
The flying three-year-old Anders takes on stablemate and Caulfield Guineas placegetter Grandslam in the second heat for Maher/Eustace while the trainers will saddle Muntaseera, Rathlin and Jet Propulsion in the third heat.
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Two of spring’s major winners have joined in late for the race for the $5 million All Star Mile with Caulfield Cup winner Verry Elleegant and Cox Plate winner Sir Dragonet among the entries at closing time on Monday.
A total of 83 eligible horses, including other spring group 1 winners Russian Camelot and Ole Kirk, were among the entries for the race in March where the public vote the first 10 horses into the race.
Sir Dragonet is one of 23 Group 1 winners in the nominations list, with 27 $1 million-plus prizemoney earners and 25 three-year-olds.
Interstate raiders have claimed the first two editions of The All-Star Mile, with the Queen of Tasmania Mystic Journey – who has again been nominated – and Western Australian Regal Power taking home the $2.25 million winner’s cheque in 2019 and 2020 respectively; and with all six states of Australia, plus New Zealand, represented in the entry list there is every chance that trend will continue this year.
Carl Di Iorio
Jockey(s) to watch: Laura Lafferty is yet to ride a city winner but that should change quickly in 2021. The vast majority of her winners, as is the case with most apprentices early in their career, settled top three, but she s won races during December with some intelligent off-pace rides, displaying greater timing and composure. I predict that Damien Oliver will win this season s Melbourne Jockeys Premiership. He s ridden almost enough seconds to complete a minute already this season although his choice of rides will be slightly impacted by the minimum weight in the metropolitan area returning to 54kg.