Trainer Michael Freedman has long said Mumbai Muse would be a major player in the autumn, even before she notched successive stakes wins last spring, and on the evidence of her first appearance for 2024 the filly will be just that.
Freedman would have left Monday’s Randwick trials feeling pretty good about things in general as the likes of Blanc De Blanc, Queen Of The Hill, Hip Hip Hurrah, Manaal and Moravia all produced pleasing work.
You don’t generally beat the flying Malkovich in barrier trials and that wasn’t the case in the opening 850m heat but Mumbai Muse trialled strongly in behind him and edged within a length before Tommy Berry put the brakes on.
You’d imagine the Group 1 Surround Stakes (1400m) is on the agenda for Mumbai Muse. That could also be Blanc De Blanc’s target and she wasn’t disgraced in running third in the trial after tracking wide throughout.
It was her second trial back, since she last raced in the Golden Slipper, she’s a filly who hasn’t had a lot of luck with barrier draws in her career and it’ll be interesting to see how she comes up under race conditions.
Queen Of The Ball led in a Freedman trifecta in the following heat, run about four lengths slower, and we know her level but the same can’t be said for Hip Hip Hurrah and Moravia.
The former is unbeaten after two starts, winning the Listed Woodlands Stakes at Scone in May, while the latter was exposed to the best three-year-olds in the spring and stood up well with a close up finish in the Group 1 Golden Rose. He does appear to have returned nicely.
– Racing NSW
