MONDAY: March 7, 2022: HAWKESBURY’S Group 1 mare in waiting Icebath is off to Melbourne next week chasing All-Star Mile glory.
Trainer Brad Widdup was advised at the weekend that Icebath had been drafted into the field for Saturday week’s $5m feature at Flemington.
“Brad is delighted that our mare will get another chance to show her wares over the Flemington mile,” the trainer’s wife Milissa said this evening.
“We became aware on Saturday night that Icebath had made the field when connections of stablemates Verry Elleegant and Espiona decided against running in the All-Star Mile.
“Brad is especially pleased as two of the mare’s owners, David Basheer and Tas Roufos, live in Melbourne and they are excited to be able to see her race again there in such an important event.”
Icebath will be sent to Melbourne next week, but an All-Star Mile rider is yet to be confirmed.
At her only Melbourne start to date, Icebath, from the outside barrier (14 ran), was beaten a whisker by Superstorm in the Group 1 Cantala Stakes over the All-Star Mile course at Flemington on October 30.
A week earlier, she won the inaugural running of the $2m Invitation (1400m) against her own sex at Royal Randwick.
Already the earner of nearly $3.8m, that figure would be so much higher if narrow defeats in both the Cantala and the 2021 Doncaster Mile at Randwick, as well as the $7.5m Golden Eagle at Rosehill Gardens the previous year, had gone her way.