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This Saturday’s Group 1 Memsie Stakes sees the return of the 2012 Melbourne Cup quinella, Sydney’s three-year-old Triple Crown winner as well as last season’s Australian Cup, Emirates Stakes and Kingston Town Classic victors.
Yet all eyes will be on a lightly raced five year-old having her first start in eighteen months.
The Mark Kavanagh trained Atlantic Jewel headlines a stellar field in what will be a hotly contested battle for the first Group 1 victory of the season.
It’s been an arduous return to racing for the unbeaten daughter of Fastnet Rock, who hasn’t been seen at the track since winning the All Aged Stakes at Randwick in 2012.
In an explosive three-year-old season that had many experts making unthinkable comparisons to Black Caviar, Atlantic Jewel dominated the filly’s division, thrashing her rivals to take out the 2011 Thousand Guineas and Wakeful Stakes, before hamstring soreness robbed her of her place in the Crown Oaks, later won by Mosheen.
Further scans revealed that Atlantic Jewel had suffered stress fractures in her back, and as such was sent straight to the spelling paddock, cutting short an incredible rise to fame.
After being given five months to recover, Atlantic Jewel returned at her brilliant best; taking out the Sapphire Stakes on her way to winning the Group 1 All Aged Stakes in a performance that crowned her the best middle distance filly in the world.
However injury again reared its ugly head, with Atlantic Jewel straining a lateral band of her super flexor tendon, ruling her out of racing indefinitely.
Patience, as Bart Cummings often says about horse racing, is the cheapest commodity in sport, but often the least used.
Such wisdom clearly reverberates with Mark Kavanagh and his team of owners, who have given their injury-plagued mare an extended spell away from the track to return to fitness.
After eighteen months in the paddock, Atlantic Jewel returned to Flemington in an 800m jump on August 16, where the big mare showed she had lost none of her brilliance, going forward from the gates to decisively win in a slick 46.10, running a blistering last 400m sectional of 21.68sec.
Atlantic Jewel has derived the world of good from her extended break, cutting an impressive figure among the early morning fog at Flemington. Upon finishing her work, regular rider Michael Rodd reported the mare felt like “she was back to her old self.”
“She’s thickened up around the neck and shoulders.” Rodd said.
“She’s a stronger horse than last time I rode her and that normally transfers to a little bit more horse power,”.
Rodd, like Kavanagh, has been counting down the days until he is reunited with the horse he regards as the best he has ridden, and believes with average luck she can make it eight from eight.
“It’s first-up at 1400 metres and it’s a Group 1 race. Probably not everyone would think it’s an ideal kick off point but we think she’s good enough to take them on and come out a winner,” Rodd said.
“It’s been a wait but it’s very much well worth it. You want to make sure you get it right with a horse like her. I’ve got a lot of confidence in her and her ability. Once the gates open it’s business as usual and I know how good she is.”
However, Kavanagh recently warned punters, who have installed Atlantic Jewel the $1.90 pre-post favourite with the TAB, that his mare is not fully wound up for her first-up outing.
“She is no Black Caviar, who is a 1000 to 1200-metre horse. This is a 2000-metre horse so you have to leave a lot in the tank and improve as she goes up in distance.”
“You can’t have her at her top now when her grand final is the Cox Plate – that’s two months away. Other people would be tempted to have her at 100 percent now to protect the unbeaten record, but not me.”
Atlantic Jewel will be taking on the history books this campaign, as she aims to become the first Thousand Guineas winner ever to win the Cox Plate.
She will be following a tried-and-true path this time in, with five of the last eight Cox Plate winners having run in the Memsie since 2005, including Mark Kavanagh’s Cox Plate victor Maldivian, who ran a 0.4L second to Weekend Hussler in 2008.
If she is victorious on Saturday, racing administrators will breathe a collective sigh of relief. Heading in to a Spring Carnival that has been robbed of mega stars All Too Hard, Pierro, Ocean Park and of course Black Caviar; racing is in dire need of a new pin up star, and the unbeaten fairy tale that is Atlantic Jewel could be that hero.
Atlantic Jewel is currently on the third line of betting at $7.00 for this year’s Cox Plate behind Puissance de Lune and It’s a Dundeel.
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