We’ve seen one winning hurdler from Ireland land the Melbourne Cup. Could a hurdle winning mare from the Emerald Isle, who will be eight next November, emulate her path-finding predecessor, Vintage Crop, and score in Australia’s greatest race in 2020?
True Self, who won the group 3 Queen Elizabeth Stakes over 2500m of the Cup course and distance on Saturday, certainly put down a marker for herself as a potential Cup wild card next year.
But while trainer, the Irish maestro Willie Mullins, is keen to aim her at the $8 million contest, he is keeping his options open after landing his first ever winner in Australia.
True Self has stamina in abundance, having won one of Ireland’s richest handicap hurdles over 4000m at the famous Punchestown Festival last year.
However, according to Mullins, all the jockeys who ride the daughter of jumping stallion Oscar, including English champion Ryan Moore, who steered the $2.10 favourite to a length-and-a-half victory at Flemington, say that she has so much speed that she might be even better dropped back in trip.
So, a Caulfield Cup or even a Cox Plate could be on the agenda.
Mullins, who arrived in Australia on Saturday morning and flies out again on Sunday evening, says connections will wait to see if they get an invitation to run in Hong Kong later this year, and then work plans out from there.
“Once all the festivals have died down and we get back from here, or Hong Kong, or wherever, we will have a think about it,” Mullins said.
“I would like to aim her at the Melbourne Cup, but if she looks like she has that speed and she can win a shorter race, then we will just go for whatever race we think she can win.
“She’s a mare that has confounded us from the very beginning. She won the biggest handicap hurdle in Ireland in Punchestown over two-and-a-half miles, which suggests she should easily stay two miles on the flat. It seems she has hidden talents all the time.
“She’s only maturing even though she is seven years of age. She wouldn’t have been trained as a flat horse, so she’s only just learning how to race as a flat horse.
“She’s incredible. She’s probably a little bit of a freak. She’s done way more than we ever thought she would at this stage of her career and it still looks like there may be more improvement in her.”