JOCKEY Nash Rawiller says a win in tomorrow’s $2.2 million Doncaster Mile would be the crowning achievement for champion mare More Joyous.
The daughter of super sire More Than Ready is destined to start one of the shortest priced favourites in the race in recent memory with as little as $2 being offered earlier in the week.
No wonder, given that More Joyous has won her last ten straight while at home in Sydney, is unbeaten at HQ, unbeaten at the 1600m and has won Group One races at her only two previous attempts at the Randwick mile.
To date, More Joyous’ magnum opus was her improbable win under Handicap conditions in the Toorak where she carried 58kgs first time around Caulfield at Group 1 level and worse still, was blocked for a run at a crucial stage.
”Before the Toorak a lot of the form students said she couldn’t win because of the weight, it wasn’t in her own backyard and everything else, there were all sorts of reasons why she couldn’t win but she did,” Rawiller told the Daily Telegraph’s racing editor Ray Thomas.
”Her Toorak effort was absolutely outstanding but I’d imagine she will need to go even better again to win the Doncaster Mile.
”It’s not going to be an easy task but it will be her crowning achievement if she can pull it off.”
Another insider who believes the stage is set for some More Joyous’ heroics is famed Randwick timekeeper Craig ‘Clocker’ Tompson.
”Gai Waterhouse and her staff have done an outstanding job in getting her through this campaign unbeaten as she has been feeling her racing this time around and has had to be managed carefully,” Tompson writes in today’s Sportsman.
”It’s also a fair testament to the ability of the horse but she’s going into tomorrow in as good a shape as last start.
”She probably peaked there and has just been kept ticking over into this race but on Tuesday morning her gallop showed she’s ready to fire again.”
