Right To Party has straight track Aura
Pinecliff’s Zoustar mare brings up hat-trick in Flemington Group 3
Winter revelation Right To Party (Zoustar) gave her surging sire the earliest honours of the new season by sealing a Flemington straight track hat-trick in Saturday’s Aurie’s Star Handicap (Gr 3, 1200m).
Fresh from matching his key rival I Am Invincible’s (Invincible Spirit) Australian winners record by ending 2023-24 with 208, Widden Stud’s Zoustar (Northern Meteor) now has the country’s first stakes race of the season to his name, thanks to Right To Party.
The Anthony and Sam Freedman-trained mare has boomed in the colder months, scoring her second win at start ten in an 1100-metre three-year-old quality handicap on June 8, before then adding her first stakes victories up the slightly longer straight course: the Creswick Sprint Series Final (Listed, 1200m) on July 6, and now the Aurie’s Star.
Right To Party became the first mare to claim the season’s opening black type event in 25 years. Hula Wonder (Hula Chief) was the last mare to win the Aurie’s Star, in 1999, and in fact claimed it six years before it achieved black type status.
A homebred for Jonathan Munz’s Pinecliff Racing, Right To Party could not have been more impressive in her victory, even allowing for the fact she was in receipt of considerable weight from some of her seven rivals with the bottom allotment of 54 kilograms.
Starting as the $3.90 favourite, the beautifully coloured grey also landed the first substantive blow of the season for Zoustar over his chief stud rival by flying home from last at the 250-metre mark to win by a length over I Am Invincible’s sole representative, race leader and $4.40 second-elect Zarastro.
Another straight track specialist It’sourtime (Time For War) – winner of the race a year earlier – took third at $7, 1.8 lengths behind the winner but 0.4 lengths ahead of Zoustar’s other runner The Astrologist ($5), the 2021 winner.
Anthony Freedman paid credit to his training partner and son post-race, saying Right To Party had benefited from a change in training regime, having been found to thrive off a light preparation, and with runs widely spaced.
“We liked her from day one but she just wasn’t doing it,” Freedman said.
“And we were probably training her wrong. To Sam’s credit – I’ve been away a bit – he’s turned this mare around and we do nearly nothing with her.
“She’s obviously great up the straight. I think a bigger field will suit her too. If she gets into one of those bigger sprints she could do some damage, particularly right down in the weights.”
Freedman attributed the mare’s winter surge to maturity acquired late in her three-year-old season.
“She’s always been a lovely, good tempered mare, but she did have some barrier issues, which is quite strange for a mare that’s as quiet as she is,” the trainer said.
“But I think she’s matured mentally, and she’s got into the habit of winning now. The straight’s really opening up doors for her, so I’m sure there’ll be other races for her, and it’s big gaps between runs as well.
“She’ll probably only run three times between now and the end of the spring.
“Horses like that are pretty easy to train. You don’t have to do much with them, just keep them sound and happy.
“I wouldn’t be going anywhere else at the moment,” he said, in reference to the Flemington straight. “And the gaps suit her – four weeks, four weeks, four weeks.”
Freedman’s sentiments were echoed by winning jockey Jye McNeil, who’s linked with the mare for her past three starts.
“She keeps rising to the occasion. She’s really matured as an athlete and is going the right way,” McNeil said.
“It was a nice enough tempo and she just relaxed beautifully. I identified It’sourtime as the one to follow. He dragged me right into the race and she was able to put them away with her brilliant finish, as we’d seen over her last couple. She’s very exciting.
“You can feel the class all about her. She’s obviously down in the weights against seasoned horses, and you feel a really good finish underneath me, and hopefully that can take her a long way.”
Zoustar’s 58th career stakes winner, Right To Party (4 m Zoustar – De Groove by Dehere) hails from a large family, being the ninth named foal of a likely final total of ten for Munz’s unraced 20-year-old grey mare De Groove (Dehere).
She now ranks as the best of her dam’s brood, having eclipsed fifth foal Big Party (Exceed And Excel), winner of a Group 3 race in Hong Kong, and his Group 3-placed older full brother Top Me Up.
De Groove also left another full brother in 2018 drop Data Patch, who became her top-priced progeny when bought by George Moore Bloodstock for $900,000 at the Gold Coast in 2020. The grey gelding has so far won four of 19 in south-east Queensland provincial class for trainer Adam Campton.
After bearing her last named foal, the yet to race Youthful Groove (Exceed And Excel) in 2021, De Groove was not served that year, and missed to King’s Legacy (Redoute’s Choice) in 2022 and 2023.