Baker keen on his Missile hope Shezanalister
Buoyed by his best season yet, Bjorn Baker believes five-year-old mare Shezanalister (Star Turn) can enhance her value when black–type racing returns to Sydney in Saturday’s Missile Stakes (Gr 2, 1200m) at Randwick.
The powerfully built chestnut steps up for her maiden attempt at black type in Sydney’s first stakes race of the season, as a pair of mares seek to boost their breeding worth by upstaging two well fancied males.
Bookmakers on Friday had Rosemont Stud’s former million–dollar colt Schwarz (Zoustar) a near even-money favourite for his resumption as a four-year-old entire.
Semillion (Shalaa) was second-favourite at around $4 as he seeks to add to several recent encouraging results for his Woodside Park sire, including his own second place in a Shalaa (Invincible Spirit) quinella behind Recommendation in Melbourne’s last black–type event of last season, Caulfield’s Bletchingly Stakes (Gr 3, 1200m).
Shezanalister was nudging him in the betting at around $5, while Gerald Ryan and Sterling Alexiou’s Arctic Glamour (Frosted) was at $6.50 as the now four-year-old resumes aiming to restore her once shining reputation after a disappointing autumn.
While Arctic Glamour has competed mostly around the top end of the racing tree, Shezanalister faces a considerable class rise after two Heavy 8 runs over 1100 metres at Randwick this campaign – a 0.5 length win in a fillies and mares’ Benchmark 78, and a second-up fourth in a Benchmark 88.
But with the mare having shown her class last campaign with a city hat-trick in the summer, Baker is confident she won’t be out of place at Group 2 level on Saturday.
“It’s a big jump up for her class-wise, but she’s going well and her form’s been good,” Baker said of Shezanalister, who has barrier two for new rider Jason Collett, and 54 kilograms under set weights and penalties.
“She’s third-up and probably ready for a peak run. Hopefully we can take advantage of the gate and be a bit closer in the run, and if she’s right there, who knows?
“The favourite is going to be hard to beat, but Shezanalister is a progressive mare and I’m hoping she’s got a few good runs in her this prep.”
Baker himself will be eyeing off a successful spring. Though Shezanalister might yet become his first winner of the new season on Saturday, his last racing year was a major success, and portends more laurels in the next few months.
The Warwick Farm-based trainer celebrated three Group 1s in 2023-24 – taking his career tally to six – with Ozzmosis (Zoustar) winning Flemington’s Coolmore Stud Stakes (Gr 1, 1200m), Overpass (Vancouver) claiming Perth’s Winterbottom Stakes (Gr 1, 1200m), and Stefi Magnetica (All Too Hard) taking Eagle Farm’s Stradbroke Handicap (Gr 1, 1400m).
For good measure, Overpass scored his second triumph in Perth’s $5 million slot race, The Quokka (1200m). While Baker’s wins total came in at 104 – down from 113 the previous season and from a high of 141 in 2019-20 – the stable’s $14.8 million prize-money total eclipsed its previous best of $11.8 million, in 2022-23.
“We had a great season, and hopefully we can build on that into this season,” the expat New Zealander said. “We’ve got some very nice young horses, and a handful of proven performers, and I’m very much looking forward to the new season.”
Baker said he was excited about what the coming months would hold for Stefi Magnetica, a potential candidate for the $20 million The Everest (1200m) at Randwick in October, plus two horses he inherited last season from other stables.
Four-year-old entire Caballus (I Am Invincible) has won two from three, including a Group 3, since transferring from Chris Waller, while Alegron (Teofilo) took the Brisbane Cup (Gr 2, 3200m) in June, his first win in almost two years, following his switch from Godolphin.
Baker said that six-year-old gelding was on a Caulfield-Melbourne cups path, while adding Caballus had “come back in great order”.
While Shezanalister faces a steep class rise on Saturday, Arctic Glamour has raced mostly at the pointy end – her past seven of 11 starts coming at Group level after she announced herself by winning Randwick’s Reginald Allen Stakes (Listed, 1400m) last spring.
That victory created a boom on the then filly, which has gone unfulfilled. Next start, she was sent into Randwick’s Callander-Presnell (Gr 2, 1600m) as a $1.70 favourite but disappointed in sixth, before having to come from the rear when fifth in Caulfield’s Thousand Guineas (Gr 1, 1600m).
After a brief break following the first running of the Thousand Guineas since it was put back to mid-November, Arctic Glamour mostly struggled in the autumn. She resumed with a seventh in the Light Fingers Stakes (Gr 2, 1200m), before running tenth in the Surround Stakes (Gr 1, 1400m) – both on Soft 5 tracks at Randwick – before a fifth in the Kembla Grange Classic (Gr 3, 1600m) on a Soft 6.
Back to a good surface, Arctic Glamour rebounded with a second, at $26, in Rosehill’s Emancipation Stakes (Gr 2, 1500m), before failing in top class, again on a Good 4, at $51 in Randwick’s Queen Of The Turf Stakes (Gr 1, 1600m).
While that run ended a moderate campaign, Ryan believes Arctic Glamour may present as a far improved runner following a spell more than twice as long as that which preceded her autumn.
“She was hounded in the autumn by wet tracks, and bad barriers meaning we had to go back,” Ryan told ANZ Bloodstock News. “She can run OK on soft ground, but those tracks at Randwick in the autumn, they were rated soft but they were really loose, shifty underneath, and horses weren’t getting good grips. A lot of jockeys said it might’ve been a Soft 5 or 6, but it was racing like a Heavy 8.
“And perhaps I had her a bit wrong too. My aim in the autumn was to get to the Vinery Stakes, but I don’t think she stayed. Then I brought her back in journey and she ran really well in the Emancipation.
“She’s come back really well. She’s grown taller, and lengthened out. She’s also had the longest spell she’s had since she was a yearling, because she didn’t get much of a spell after the Thousand Guineas, and she only had a brief spell before last spring as well.
“Whether she’s up to this level at this distance I’m not real sure. But she worked really well about three weeks ago on the [Rosehill] course proper, and that’s when I started thinking about this race, because she was more advanced than I thought she was.
“I thought it might be a chance to run really well in a Group 2 race first-up before the good sprinters get back into play.”
Randwick was on Friday night rated a Soft 5 with fine weather forecast.