A TRIO of Royal Ascot-bound Australian sprinters flew out of the country Wednesday night.

The Chris Waller-trained pair of of Nature Strip and the Coolmore-owned Home Affairs were joined on the flight by the Anthony and Sam Freedman-trained Artorius Nature Strip and the Coolmore-owned Home Affairs were joined on the flight by the Anthony and Sam Freedman-trained Artorius, the 2021 Blue Diamond Stakes winner.

“I think they’re good enough to be fighting out the finish and obviously respecting the world stage, it’s a big stage and the best come together. If we can get there in the best possible shape, we’ll do well,” opined Chris Waller who indicated Nature Strip would contest the King’s Stand Stakes on the first day, June 14th, and Home Affairs would tackle the Platinum Jubilee Stakes on the final day.

“We just think Nature Strip could be a bit better suited to that 1,000 metre sprint, respecting that’s a really tough 1,000 metres, and Home Affairs, I think the 1,200 metres suits his profile as well, so that’s the plan and let’s hope they both make each race and run accordingly,” he added.

The Platinum Jubilee Stakes is also the target for Artorius who will be ridden by Jamie Spencer, with the Freedmans open to the option of continuing onto the July Cup three weeks later. Waller’s previous experience at Royal Ascot was a second in the Diamond Jubilee Stakes with Brazen Beau in 2015.

Verry Ellegant

The Melbourne Cup heroine Verry Ellegant has already arrived in France to the Chantilly stables of Francis-Henri Graffard and has been pictured riding out as she completes her quarantine.

Racing Victoria planning ahead

RACING Victoria announced during the past week that they had secured the purchase of a 1,000-acre property 10 minutes from Melbourne Airport and 30 minutes from the centre of the city.

Speculated to cost in the order of 10’s of millions, the land, three times the size of the Crown land that Flemington occupies, Racing Victoria acknowledged it did not have a set plan but rather was keen to ‘land bank’ now and develop later.

“We haven’t decided what we want to do with it yet. There’s a lot of ideas,” said Racing Victoria CEO Giles Thompson.

Facilities

“Those ideas are everything from a new training centre, race track, equine welfare facilities, breeding facilities, development for participants and quarantine facilities.

“We are going through a master plan process over the next couple of years. We don’t need to rush this, we don’t need to develop it in the short term.”

In the past there has been speculation that Flemington would like to close its training centre. Also the option of moving the quarantine centre from Werribee, which has hosted International runners since 2010, opens the possibility of selling that valuable asset to property developers, helping to offset the cost of the new land.