Australian Horse of the Year Winx (Aus) (Street Cry {Ire}) looks unlikely to race overseas next season, with trainer Chris Waller telling Racing.com the 5-year-old mare's autumn campaign will look similar to this year's, culminating in a run at The Championships in April.
Winx, who ran her unbeaten streak to 13 and defended her G1 Cox Plate title with a scarcely believable eight-length romp when last seen Oct. 22, is currently enjoying a spell.
“She'll be back in [the stable] midway through December gearing up for another very important preparation, which I think will lead to four runs through the autumn starting off in the [G2] Apollo, [G1] Chipping Norton, [G1] George Ryder and then the [G1] Queen Elizabeth,” Waller told Racing.com. “She never really had a proper spell last time because she had an operation and was confined to a stable for four weeks. After that, she had a pretty strict rehab and recovery and so she's enjoying the luxury of a nice grass paddock, the sun on her back and being a lady of leisure.”
That plan would see Winx open her campaign with the same three races she won last season en route to a win in the A$3-million G1 Doncaster Mile at The Championships. Next season's plan would see Winx wait until the second weekend of The Championships and take in the A$4-million Queen Elizabeth over 2000 metres.
Talks of an overseas campaign for the great mare were bandied about by connections and the press alike after Winx's Cox Plate win, and Waller said on Wednesday, “Yeah, it would be great to go with her to Hong Kong, it would be great to go to Dubai, it would be great to go to Japan, it would be great to go to England and France but you can't go everywhere and that decision is made a lot easier when you have so many great races in Australia. I guess you could say the Australian racing calendar is doing a good job looking after its own because we've got enough good racing that we've got nothing left at the end of a long Spring Carnival. Perth's offering some good prizemoney and the autumn comes around so quick so Australia's probably doing a good job in looking after their own horses.”
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