Verry Elleegant Fights for Winx Stakes Score

Verry Elleegant is poised to be a dominant force in the spring after the star mare won her fourth top-level race with a tough first-up victory in the Aug. 22 Winx Stakes (G1), defying a long, wide run to take out the first group 1 race of the new racing season at Randwick.

Her trainer, Chris Waller, who also prepared runner-up Star of the Seas, now has the dilemma of how best to manage the tough, but slow-maturing Zed mare's campaign in order to ensure she is in peak condition for the "majors."

Before Verry Elleegant, a dominant Kia Tancred Stakes (G1) winner at Rosehill in the autumn, resumed this campaign, Waller and connections outlined the Caulfield Cup (G1) and Melbourne Cup (G1) as her primary targets.

After Saturday's performance, however, Waller pondered whether the Cox Plate (G1) would be a better lead-up race for the mare who had never previously won first-up.

"I think we have the right horse for the Melbourne Cup, but if the weights kill us, we will go to the Cox Plate," Waller said. 

"She hasn't changed her physique, but mentally she is coping so much better with her racing. She puts so much into her races, and I think that might have disadvantaged her a bit in the early days. She would show a bit of stress and negative body language, but now she has the confidence in herself and it is showing in her racing."

Ridden by James McDonald, Verry Elleegant fought strongly late to defeat stablemate Star of the Seas by a nose.

The Matthew Smith-trained Fierce Impact was a long head away in third while the Waller-trained Imaging was an eye-catching fourth.

McDonald said Verry Elleegant was "without a doubt an absolute star."

"Her forte is her long, sustained sprint and it wasn't stopping today. It got stronger as the race went on," McDonald said. "For a horse that is a mile-and-a-half horse and being set for a Melbourne Cup, it's just incredible. She would have to be the toughest mare I've ever had anything to do with."

The one possible disappointment of the race for Waller was last season's TAB Epsom Handicap (G1) and Iron Jack Golden Eagle winner Kolding who finished 13th, seven lengths behind Verry Elleegant.

Waller said: "(Jockey Glen Boss) said he doesn't feel quite right—just not there yet. He didn't tow him into the race as he would have hoped. I said, 'Stick with me and we'll try to get him right.'"

Master of Wine, the $6 equal favorite who is high up in betting markets for the Caulfield Cup, Cox Plate, and Melbourne Cup, finished a neck in front of Kolding in his return.

His jockey, Tommy Berry, said the Hawkes Racing-trained 6-year-old "just grinded home."

A private purchase by Andrew Williams Bloodstock out of New Zealand as an early season 3-year-old after she had raced just three

times for two restricted victories, Verry Elleegant has since won a further seven races, four of them at the highest level, for AU$3,421,700 in prize-money earnings.

Very Elleegant is a half sister to two other winners but is the only stakes performer in the first two dams, although her third dam Chalet Girl is a half sister to high-class Australian 3-year-old of the mid-1990s Danewin, a five-time group 1 winner, and the late successful stallion Commands.

Her dam Opulence has an unraced 2-year-old who was purchased by John Chalmers Bloodstock on behalf of leading Western Australian owner Bob Peters at this year's New Zealand Bloodstock Karaka Yearling Sale for NZ$140,000 (US$92,531). She also has a yearling colt by Zed, but she was not covered last year.