Written By Trevor Marshallsea (ANZ Bloodstock News)
https://www.anzbloodstocknews.com/editions/2026-10/30/web/index.html
Two races, both worth $10 million, and offering contrasting pictures for Australian breeding.
Tuesday’s Melbourne Cup (Gr 1, 2400m) will feature a full field, as usual, and as of Thursday afternoon the top 24 had just four locally bred runners, with 16 from Europe, two from New Zealand, and one each bred in Japan and the US.
Still, it’s a decent recent record for Australian-breds of three wins in the past seven editions that Knight’s Choice (Extreme Choice), Zakouma (Crowded House), Strictly Business (Grunt) and the newly added So You Are (So You Think) will try to extend.
At Randwick, it’s an opposite scenario for the Golden Eagle (Gr 1, 1500m) in the four-year-old event’s first running in black type, and its eighth overall. The field stood at 16 on Thursday comprising 14 Australian products, plus one New Zealander.
And even the one “foreign” runner can be called Australian-made.
He’s Amazing Journey, and while he carries the suffix of Ireland, he’s by Australian stallion Starspangledbanner (Choisir), conceived in 2021 from one of the now 20-year-old’s many shuttle seasons to Coolmore’s northern headquarters.
Starspangledbanner has been a remarkable stallion in some respects, building an imposing record north of the equator despite some well documented fertility battles.
All 12 of his elite winners have scored in Europe and the US, though with one – current Newgate Farm sire State Of Rest – also bringing the stallion’s lone top-tier success in Australia, when visiting to add the 2021 Cox Plate (Gr 1, 2040m) to his other three top level wins.
In Australia, Starspangledbanner has 13 stakes winners from 286 runners at 4.54 per cent. In Britain that figure is only slightly better, with 20 at 4.86 per cent. In Ireland he has 19 at 7.57 per cent and in France it’s a resounding 11 from a neat 100 starters.
But that killer stat remains that those 12 top-level victors among his 68 stakes winners worldwide – a hefty ratio of 17.64 per cent – have come in Europe, the US and Hong Kong.
Amazing Journey could become his 13th on Saturday, and while the gelding is Irish-bred, he will at least count as an Australian domiciled Group 1 winner if he makes a winning debut in the Golden Eagle.
He’s another of Ciaron Maher’s expansive band of European imports. But for the man who has a staggering seven of those top-24 Melbourne Cup aspirants, Amazing Journey is an import with a difference, in that he’s not a stayer.
Racing for a vast ownership team featuring Maher’s Unbridled Racing – the trainer’s microshare wing which has two horses so far – Amazing Journey arrived at the end of winter with a CV of five wins from 11 starts in England.
He’s yet to compete for black type, but comes off a last-start 1.25 length win in the Moet & Chandon International Handicap (1400m), a prestigious event carrying the designation of a “heritage handicap”, which was worth a good-for-England $300,000.
Its recent winners include 2021’s Danyah (Invincible Spirit), who won Dubai’s Al Quoz Sprint (Gr 1, 1200m) eight months later, beating Australia’s The Astrologist (Zoustar) into second.
Still only three-and-a-half biologically, Amazing Journey goes into the set weights Golden Eagle with a kilogram less than the local four-year-olds’ 57.5kg. Thus he’ll be trying to emulate the two northern hemisphere horses who’ve won the race – both entires in Japan’s Obamburumai (Discreet Cat) in 2023 and England’s Lake Forest (No Nay Never) the year after.
Amazing Journey also has a handicap rating of 90 – well below the 118 of raging $1.80 favourite Sheza Alibi (Saxon Warrior), one of three mares on 55.5kg along with $19 shot and last-start Silver Eagle (Listed, 1300m) queen Apocalyptic (Extreme Choice) and $34 hope Within The Law (Lucky Vega).
Maher’s import is also well below the handicap rating of the three leading males in the market: the 117 of $7 second elect Beiwacht (Bivouac); the 111 of $9 shot Autumn Boy (The Autumn Sun); and the 114 of $12 fourth-favourite Skyhook (Written Tycoon).
Amazing Journey, installed guardedly as a $19 chance by bookmakers, will be ridden by burgeoning English jockey Saffie Osborne, who’s had stints with Maher’s stable and is about to embark on a Hong Kong sojourn. Osborne’s father Jamie trained the horse originally, and she rode him eight times, including for three wins.
Despite the odds and the opposition, Maher regards his new purchase highly, and is confident of a forward showing on Saturday. At least he was, before he drew barrier 15, which at least became 13 after two scratchings, perhaps allowing Maher to retain his sense of humour.
“It was going to be an amazing journey until the barrier draw,” he told ANZ News.
“He’s coming up very well, but it’s not a great gate. He’ll probably roll forward, see where we end up. It’s a wide gate – you’ve either got to work early or late, one or the other.”
Maher and his team swooped to buy Amazing Journey after that last-start Ascot handicap win on July 25.
“He just returned really good figures from his races,” he said.
“And I think he’s just a good horse. The stable very much liked him. Saffie worked for us before and I’ve known Jamie for a long time, and they both liked him as well.
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He’s a leggy type, and he’s a horse who still looks like he’s going to mature, fill out and furnish, but he’s still only three-and-a-half, so you expect that
CIARON MAHER
“He’s a horse who took a bit of time. He’s a leggy type, and he’s a horse who still looks like he’s going to mature, fill out and furnish, but he’s still only three-and-a-half, so you expect that.
“He goes forward and he’s got really good figures, and if you can win at Ascot up the hill, it usually puts you in good stead for a bit further down here. Plus, he seems clean winded and has a clean action.”
Amazing Journey raced up on the pace under Osborne in the Moet & Chandon Handicap and pulled away late to score, despite being very wayward in the closing stages.
His greenness was also on show when he required a blindfold to be loaded for the first of his two Australian barrier trials, at Randwick on October 6. Perhaps he knew he was being thrown in the deep end, as he ran last of the seven behind Ninja (Farnan), Ka Ying Rising (Shamexpress), Apocalyptic, Joliestar (Zoustar), Headwall (Dream Ahead) and Angel Capital (Harry Angel).
The gelding’s second try was better, a 0.14 length second in a 1030-metre heat at Rosehill behind quadruple stakes winner King Of Roseau (Capitalist).
“In that first trial he was a bit fresh. He actually finished off really well, it was just that they went very slow and sprinted home,” Maher said. “In his second one, he was relaxed and I thought he went very well. We asked a little bit more than the first.”
While Maher’s imports are mostly stayers, he doesn’t see the purchase of a horse who’s won from 1207 metres to 1408 metres as a sign of any shift in strategy, citing a previous example in Light Infantry Man (Fast Company).
That gelding was bought after two English wins over similar distances before running sixth in the 2022 Golden Eagle, before then developing into a middle distance horse with two Australian Cup (Gr 1, 2000m) wins now to his credit.
“Light Infantry Man was a similar type of horse, but probably a bit better credentialed,” Maher said. “With the tried horse market over there, the main thing is that you go for horses you’re able to acquire.”
Unbridled Racing kicked off with Maher’s three-year-old filly Over The Bridge (Toronado), winner of last month’s Scarborough Stakes (Gr 3, 1200m) at Caulfield among her three starts, before adding a stake in Amazing Journey.
Following the success of other micro syndicators, this wing of Maher’s vast operation takes a single payment, starting from $349, with no ongoing costs.
Explaining the innovation, Maher said: “We deal with a lot of owners, and a lot of owners were very keen but couldn’t actually afford a share and the ongoings.
“We thought, ‘We deal with them anyway; we may as well do the whole lot’.
“We’ve just got the two very nice horses. One’s already proven in England and the other one was a young horse that we thought a lot of. We’ll be looking to expand shortly.”
That proven horse, Amazing Journey, has impressed Maher so far, and he’s delighted to have Osborne to ride. But two major obstacles stand in the way of success – that wide gate, and the outstanding Sheza Alibi, even if the Moody-Coleman mare has to drop 500 metres from her last-start upset second in the Caulfield Stakes (Gr 1, 2000m).
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If we’d drawn well I would’ve been quite confident. Barriers can be overdone, but this does make it a bit tougher
CIARON MAHER
“Saffie’s quite familiar with the horse and has a good record on him. She’s familiar with Australian racing, and she looks like she’s just kept improving in her career, with what she’s done this year,” Maher said. “She’s got a guernsey to ride in Hong Kong, and I’m sure she’ll have her tail up.
“If we’d drawn well I would’ve been quite confident. Barriers can be overdone, but this does make it a bit tougher.
“And Sheza Alibi’s obviously a bloody champion. She’s drawn well and should get a good run, but hopefully we can beat her all the same.”
Ten of the Golden Eagle’s 16 runners are by Australian sires, even including the New Zealand-based Platinum Pantheon (Hanseatic), who was sold at Magic Millions Gold Coast before crossing the Tasman. The Australian-bred Sheza Alibi is one exception, though she was bred here by Japanese sire Saxon Warrior when he was shuttling to Coolmore in the Hunter Valley.
