McDonald Verry Eager To See Star Mare Crowned Queen

Premier jockey James McDonald generally prefers to make grand statements after a race but there’s no hiding his anticipation as he aims to seal Horse Of The Year honours for star mare Verry Elleegant at Royal Randwick on Saturday.

Jockey James McDonald (Pic: Steve Hart).

It’s the heavyweight clash we’ve been waiting for, the Group 1 $4m Longines Queen Elizabeth Stakes (2000m) where Verry Elleegant will attempt to repeat her dominance this year of UK raider Addeybb and square the leger in their fourth battle.

There’s respect from McDonald for challengers like Tancred Stakes and Cox Plate winner Sir Dragonet and the highly capable Mugatoo but aside from winning the race he’s keen for the five-year-old to get the recognition she deserves.

“What she’s done over her career has been amazing,’’ McDonald said.

“She’s won a seven furlong Group 1, won up to a mile and a half, had one go over 3200m and came back to win a mile Group 1. She’s a remarkable mare, an old school tough racehorse.

“She deserves to be horse of the year and hopefully this puts icing on the cake. No Queen Elizabeth is easy, it takes a very good horse to win it but she is one.”

Verry Elleegant took her Group 1 tally to eight and notched her fifth this season when she ran down Addeybb in the Ranvet Stakes (2000m) at Rosehill on March 27.

It was a win McDonald absolutely dug and he said he’s just as pleased with her ahead of the Queen Elizabeth following her major gallop on Tuesday morning.

“She’s had a faultless preparation and she hasn’t gone backwards,’’ he said.

“She did a lovely piece of work, like the performance she put in before the Ranvet and that gives us a good indication of where she’s at.

“The Ranvet was cool, I haven’t had that much fun on a racetrack in a while and hopefully we can do it again.”

There’s no doubt the Queen Elizabeth will be a tactical affair and the four big guns in the race have drawn alongside each other with Verry Elleegant, $2.60 favourite with TAB after Tuesday’s draw, the widest of the quartet in four in the eight horse field.

McDonald was able to tag Addeybb all the way in the Ranvet and pounce midway down the straight, she then withstood his fightback, and he knows at this stage of her career she’s a horse he can ride with confidence.

“Sometimes she jumps and sometimes she doesn’t, you just go there with an open mind and that’s probably why we’ve had a good relationship,’’ he said.

“You just go with the flow. She’s got a high cruising speed and a good sustained turn of foot, she’s got everything.”

After Day 1 of The Star Championships, McDonald holds the lead in the Nathan Berry Medal with six points from his two Group 1 wins last weekend and six of the 10 races on Saturday (the four Group 1s plus the Arrowfield and Percy Sykes) carry points to decide the 2021 recipient.

Meanwhile, Rosehill Guineas winner Mo’unga will be the lone three-year-old in the Queen Elizabeth after trainer Annabel Neasham elected to back up from the colt’s midfield finish in last weekend’s Star Doncaster Mile.

The last of his age to win the weight-for-age championship was Intergaze, who toppled retiring champion Octagonal, back in 1997 and only five have managed to win in 66 editions.

Neasham rode Mo’unga ($21) in trackwork on Tuesday and gave him the green light to run, she’s preferring to forget he went around in the Doncaster and hopes a dry track can bring out his best.

“I think on paper maybe he looked disappointing but he was juts a victim of the barrier in a big field like that, he was detached from the field a little and it was a mighty task,’’ she said.

“I thought he closed off well all things considered.

“I think he’s best on top of the ground and can show that turn of foot better than he has his last two starts. In the smaller field he’ll be a little bit closer to them and it won’t be such a big task.”

– Racing NSW

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