Hear the full interview
From 25:58 in Friday’s episode of Nick Luck Daily. Press play to start at the interview.
John Messara has dropped plans to take Autumn Glow to Royal Ascot next year, saying the trip would be too big a risk for one of the world’s most valuable mares.
The Australian Horse of the Year, trained by Chris Waller, has won 14 of her 15 starts. She goes for a sixth Group 1 in the Champions Mile at Flemington on Saturday, on her first trip out of New South Wales.
‘Am I taking too big a risk?’
Messara told Nick Luck he changed his mind about two weeks ago. “I had a moment of introspection when I thought, now why am I doing this? Is it for me or is it for her?” he said. Autumn Glow is owned by Messara’s Arrowfield with partners Hermitage, who he said were “pretty willing to go either way”.
“When I thought about it strongly, I thought, am I not taking too big a risk flying this mare from one end of the world to the other? I think it’s a 42-hour trip door to door,” he said. “A lot of things can go wrong. I’ve taken horses over there and they’ve lost a huge amount of weight on the flight. They can get travel sick. Most of them get through OK, but she’s not a gelding. She’s one of the world’s most valuable mares for the future. I can’t see that it’s going to make much difference to her or to her ratings.”
He then met Waller, who said there were “a lot of things to jump through to get there, to get settled there and make sure she’s at her best”. Waller would also have liked to give her a run down the straight at Flemington first, which does not fit with Ascot in the new year. “I think he was quite relieved when I said, look, I’m perfectly happy to ditch the plan and stick to Australia,” Messara said. “We’ll try and find races next year that we didn’t go through this year, maybe a few weight-for-age races in Victoria. Ascot’s not on the plan anymore, but we haven’t settled on a campaign yet.”
“She’s one of the world’s most valuable mares for the future.”
John Messara on Autumn Glow
‘She is getting better with time’
Her only defeat came over 2,000 metres. “She’s essentially a sprinter-miler, and as a result the pressure’s slightly off,” Messara said. “But I’m going to really enjoy tomorrow, because she’s running at Australia’s premier track. I’m here to watch her gallop up the straight.”
He agreed she is still improving. “That’s the way I see it, that’s the way the jockey appears to see it, and that’s the way the trainer sees it as well,” he said. “At the end of her races she’s never pushed out. As soon as James works out that she’s got the race won, he eases up and looks around to see where the competition is.” She did not run until she was three. “We wanted to make sure she was physically well established before she started racing, so she’s relatively lightly raced for a horse her age.”
He thinks Flemington’s long straight will suit her big stride, but he is worried about rain. “She’s won on a six and a seven, but I just don’t know what she’ll do if it’s a nine or a ten.”
The super-trainers
Messara thinks this year’s carnival has been as good as ever, with big crowds and “copious” television coverage. He said it was “a bit unusual” for two trainers to have half the Melbourne Cup field, which Ciaron Maher won with a 1-2-3 led by Point Of Law, and that Maher and Chris Waller have an edge at the moment. “Chris in particular is an excellent organiser in terms of his staff and systems,” he said. “He’s put in very good systems and good, high-quality staff, so he’s able to manage it.”
“I don’t know how Ciaron does it, because he’s got a lot of locations where his horses are trained,” he added. “I know he’s got an independent board of business-style people that advise him on various matters. So they’re modernising the craft and running it more like a business. But how they get these results, I still can’t quite figure.”
