Of all the retirements from racing in the last few months More Joyous’ is the easiest to live with.
We’re talking about a horse that won ten races that now hold Group 1 status, with an overall winning strike rate of 64% – a champion on paper – but a mare about to turn seven who hadn’t won in her last five starts.
And of course, you don’t need a passing interest in racing to know that niggling injuries were beginning to catch-up with More Joyous. She was lame before her penultimate start in the Queen of the Turf and sore in the neck before the All Aged.
And even though John Singleton reported the mare to be in good health when announcing her retirement on Sunday evening, I think he’s pulled the right rein. There’s nothing else for this super mare to prove.
That’s not to say we won’t miss More Joyous. More Joyous follows the retirements of Black Caviar (15 Group 1s), Pierro (five G1s) and All Too Hard (four) – four of Australian racing’s best horses are finished.
And the second-tier has been eaten into as well. In the last month we’ve learnt that Danleigh (four, retired), Sea Siren (three), Ortensia (three, retired) Secret Admirer (two, retired) and Nechita (one) won’t race in Australia again.
As well as that Rangirangdoo (two) died in tragic circumstances last week and Reliable Man (two) has an injury that may end his career.
Our best-credential horses are the rising seven-year old Shoot Out (five), star Kiwi colt It’s A Dundeel (four), unbeaten superstar on the comeback trail Atlantic Jewel (three), Appearance (three) and Manighar (three).
Then we are left with the remainder of the once-in-a-generation three-year old crop – Fiveandahalfstar (two), Epaulette (two), Sacred Falls (two) and Super Cool (one) – as well as Melbourne Cup winner Green Moon (two), classy juvenile Guelph (two) and handy sprinter Platelet (two).
More Joyous’ retirement is a stark reminder that Australian racing is in transition. Our weight-for-age ranks are poor and half of our outstanding group of three-year olds are already being prepared for their debut season at stud.
On the track, More Joyous was dominant at the sprinter-miler caper. She wasn’t a standout youngster yet she was good enough to win at Group 2 level at two and start favourite in a Golden Slipper.
At three, she broke her Group 1 duck against her own age and sex in the Flight Stakes before coming of age in her four-year-old spring campaign.
Famously, More Joyous won the Toorak Handicap with 58kgs on 2010 Caulfield Guineas Day; a meeting that will forever be remembered as one that Black Caviar and So You Think also saluted on. What a great day it was in the history of Australian racing.
More Joyous sealed her greatness as an autumn five-year old when she went on an unbeaten run that saw her claim the 2012 Canterbury (now G1), Queen of the Turf (G1), Doncaster (G1, 57.5) and Queen Elizabeth (G1) in succession.
At that point, More Joyous could easily have been ranked the third-best mare in the world behind Black Caviar and Arc winner Danedream.
Singo could have retired More Joyous then and there but he kept her in work with the aim of winning the Cox Plate.
Those hopes came unstuck but More Joyous gave me a great memory in September last year when she won for the second-last time, the Sheraco Stakes at Rosehill.
For the first time in her life, More Joyous – a lightly-framed and plain mare to look at – took my eye. Her coat glistened in the sun and as I wrote for The Roar on the Monday after that win, ‘she may finally have filled out’.
I was wrong in thinking More Joyous was ready to add to her ten Group 1s but I now realise she was telling the world that she was ready to be a broodmare.
Providing a shortage in the EI vaccine can be sorted out in the next few months (apparently there are no shots left and the manufacturer has folded) More Joyous will travel to England to be mated with Frankel this September. I doubt Frankel will serve a better-bred mare than More Joyous.
More Joyful, the full sister to More Joyous, is one of John Singleton’s next big hopes in racing. She’s a two-year old, currently in the paddock. We look forward to seeing her on track.
MJ’s mother, Sunday Joy, won an AJC Oaks and is a half-sister to multiple Group 1 winning mare Tuesday Joy. Sunday Joy and Tuesday Joy are from the 1995 Queensland Oaks winner Joie Denise, who herself is the daughter Denise’s Joy, a winner of the VRC Oaks, Australian Derby and Queensland Oaks. What a lineage!
John Singleton is hoping MJ gives birth to a filly, one that he will keep to race himself, because this is a great family of girls.
And in many ways so do I. She’ll have big boots to fill but if little MJ is half as good as mum, she is sure to bring a whole lot of joy to racing.
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