Tiara is a great fit for Tashi

New Paper

18 hours ago

The guesswork in spotting the last Australian Group 1 winner of 2024-2025 has been made just a little harder by one missing piece.
None of the 17 runners to the A$700,000 (S$583,000) Tattersall's Tiara (1,400m) at Eagle Farm on June 28 (1.58pm Singapore time) is coming out of the Stradbroke Handicap.
Queensland's premier Group 1 1,400m event, which was won by War Machine on June 14, has delivered the Tiara winners of the last four editions - Tofane (2021), Startantes (2022), Palaisipan (2023) and Bella Nipotina (2024).
Since the fillies and mares contest earned Group 1 status in 2007, eight winners have borne the Stradbroke formline in their lead-up, with Srikandi (2015) and Tofane doing the Stradbroke-Tiara double, a feat achieved by only Dane Ripper in the pre-Group 1 Tiara era in 1997.
Interestingly, the eventual 1997 Cox Plate winner is, in name, providing the perfect fall-back option to a Tiara renewal bereft of Stradbroke form this year. The Group 2 Dane Ripper Stakes (1,300m), which is held on Stradbroke day, is without a doubt the next best traditional prelude.
No fewer than 10 of the 14 Dane Ripper runners in 2025 will contest the Tiara, including the first three home, Floozie, Tashi and Firestorm - who, unsurprisingly, head the market.
If anything, the statistics around the Dane Ripper Stakes as a Tiara crystal ball are almost as compelling as the Stradbroke.
For the nine Group 1 Tiara winners who did not come through the Stradbroke, seven rounded out their preparations in the Dane Ripper, with Red Tracer (2013), Cosmic Endeavour (2014) and Invincibella (2019) the three to have completed the double that Floozie is chasing.
Undefeated in four runs this campaign, Tony Gollan's mare by Zoustar is a deserved favourite at 3-1, almost sharing that tag with Firestorm, on whom James McDonald is bidding to equal Malcolm Johnston's 45-year-old record of 16 Group 1 wins in one season.
But, perhaps, the one anomaly to that market is Tashi's odds of 6-1.
In the Dane Ripper Stakes, the Peter Snowden-trained mare did not see clean air as early as the winner Floozie, but still took a huge chunk of ground off her to miss out by only half-a-length.
The one-pound swing in Floozie's favour is too marginal to account for the quote discrepancy. For that reason, Tashi represents much better value, especially if he finds daylight earlier.
Knockers may argue that the Sebring five-year-old does not scream Group 1 material, but then again, neither do most of her 16 rivals.
As a benchmark, the only Group 1 winner, 2024 South Australian Derby (2,500m) winner Coco Sun is first-up after a disappointing Spring campaign, and over a trip not made to suit.
Firestorm and Semana are the only two Group-placed contenders, and also hail from the powerhouse yards of Chris Waller and Ciaron Maher respectively.
Firestorm ran second to stablemate and glamour filly Lady Shenandoah in the 2025 Coolmore Classic (1,500m), while Semana's three Group 1 placings notably include her second to Bella Nipotina for a Maher 1-2 in last year's Tiara.
Bella Nipotina, who was recently retired, was the last of seven favourites since 2007 to win the Tiara.
It has, however, also hatched nine double-figure winners in 20-1 shots Russeting (2009), Miss Cover Girl (2016) and Tycoon Tara (2017), incidentally Snowden's only Tiara winner.
A win by Tashi would not be as jaw-dropping, but would vault Darley's (Godolphin's old name in Australia) former head trainer back into the limelight and give his Irish jockey Tom Sherry a much-deserved first Group 1 silverware.
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