AURIE’S STAR
THE RACE The Group 3 Aurie’s Star Handicap is an important race on the Victorian Racing Calendar. It more or less signifies the emergence of the spring horses; it is the first Group race of the new racing season. Over the years the importance of the Aurie’s Star Handicap has shifted with changing training regimes and programming for spring horses. In the old days, it was the race that the great Bart Cummings would use to kick off a number of his stayers heading into a Melbourne Cup preparation. It gave trainers a good opportunity to let their horses sight Flemington in advance of future races and to do so on an excellent straight galloping surface. Hyperno, who won the Cup in 1979, started his long road to the Cup in the Aurie’s Star Handicap. The race did get its recognition in recent years and was upgraded to Listed status in 2005 when Niconero won and has been a Group 3 since 2010. Prior to 2005, it was the most competitive 1200-metre race run in Victoria with no black type status.
The honour roll is evidently dominated by specialist sprinters, however when you look a little deeper, the race has produced spring contenders, and some future stars. Fields Of Omagh won the Aurie’s Star Handicap first-up in 2002, going on to place in both the Turnbull Stakes and Caulfield Cup before competing in his first of five Cox Plate attempts, being successful twice, in 2003 and 2006. Niconero won the race in 2005 at his first start Lindsay Park trainer, David Hayes, who had returned from a training stint in Hong Kong. He won the Group 2
Crystal Mile (1600m) on Cox Plate Day, before capping off a successful spring with a close fourth to Valedictum in the Cantala Stakes (now known as the Kennedy Champions Mile). He would go on to win the 2009 Group 1 Australian Cup at Flemington and finish his racing career as a five-time Group 1 winner. El Segundo began four of his spring campaigns in the Aurie’s Star Handicap, placing three times in 2006, 2007 and 2009, before heading on to loftier heights. He chased home Fields Of Omagh in the 2006 Cox Plate before claiming the race himself a year later. The 2006 edition was a star-studded affair featuring Flemington Group 1
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