Latest News

By Ray Hickson

It’s never easy to turn your back on a $1 million race but that’s what Paul Messara has decided to do by confirming exciting mare Clear Thinking will take her place in Saturday’s Group 3 $250,000 HKJC World Pool Wenona Girl (1200m) at Randwick.

Trainer Paul Messara (Pic: Steve Hart).

Clear Thinking has long been one of the favourites for the Evergreen Turf Country Championships Final but by running at Randwick it will rule her out of the series on one of two fronts.

If she wins then she’s ineligible anyway as she’ll be open class, if she runs but doesn’t win and is therefore scratched from Tamworth on Sunday she can’t contest the Wild Card.

Messara, who co-trains with Leah Gavranich, says gaining a Group win would be more valuable for the 'royally' bred Clear Thinking and he’s even entertaining targeting a Group 1 at the end of the season.

“She’s obviously up to that level and maybe beyond,’’ Messara said.

“She’s going to build in confidence and race craft every time she goes around and I can only see her getting better for each experience.

“She’d won other races in difficult situations, she could have been beaten and found a way to win. Good horses do that, she’s got that tactical acceleration to be able to get herself out of a difficult position and make up ground.

“We’re going to assess each race and how much progress she makes and try to place her to advantage.

“I was thinking about Group 1 possibilities for her down the track and a race like the Tatt’s Tiara is a race we could head towards.”

It’s no small achievement to jump from a Class 3 Highway win into a Group 3 and Clear Thinking, $4.80 with TAB on Thursday, confirmed to Messara what he’s long thought about her with a slashing second in the Triscay Stakes (1200m) three weeks ago.

In that race the five-year-old was forced to concede significant ground after drawing wide and Messara hopes with potentially a slightly more favourable draw in the Wenona Girl she can atone.

Clear Thinking clocked 32.88 (Punter’s Intelligence) for her last 600m as she ran Inhibitions to just over half a length.

“It was more the barrier than anything else, if we could have settled a pair or two closer we probably win the race,’’ he said.

“It’s not a great barrier again but we’re going to have to get lucky and hope you can make up ground on the day. I don’t think we will ride her against her pattern so she’ll be wherever she lands and do our best from there.

“Somewhere in the middle, one off the fence, that’d be fine just hopefully we don’t have to go right back.”

Messara will still have up to four runners in the Hunter & North West Country Championships on Sunday with Know Thyself, Rematch, Intervarsity and Gentileschi among the acceptors.

Meanwhile, Genzano will wear pacifiers in the Group 3 $250,000 Mostyncopper Aspiration Quality (1600m) with Messara hoping she can race more generously than in her two runs back.

The four-year-old, who won the Group 3 Spring Stakes in Newcastle in 2023, finished midfield behind More Territories three weeks ago in what was a small improvement from her first-up run.

Clear Thinking runs second at Randwick on February 15

“She’s been a bit of a mystery. She’s overdoing it in the middle part of the races, she’s overcooking herself,’’ Messara said.

“She got a bit of heatstroke after the first race and I don’t know whether she had that on her mind the other day and she over raced.

“I’m hoping she can relax a bit more in the run and then finish off at the back end of it. I can’t find much wrong with her, she hasn’t been finding the line as well as she does.”

All the fields, form and replays for Saturday’s meeting at Randwick