History awaits Captains Mistress in Victoria Cup

By Adam Hamilton 

Wonder mare Captains Mistress’ stranglehold on Saturday night’s Group 1 Victoria Cup just got a lot stronger.

Already a stand-out, a perfect draw in gate three saw her odds slashed even further from $1.40 to $1.15.

Driver Cam Hart can either push hard to hold the lead or work to the front soon after the race, making the mare almost unbeatable over 2240m around Melton.

Further enhancing her cause, defending champion and main danger Kingman drew very awkwardly inside the back row (gate eight).

On what we’ve seen, Kingman needed to draw inside Captains Mistress and lead to have any real chance of beating her.

Kingman eased from $8 to $15.

Captains Mistress is poised to create history on Saturday night.

No mare has won the Victoria Cup, dubbed the Cox Plate of harness racing, since its inception in 1974.

But such has been Captains Mistress’ splash into the big league, most think she is over the line.

Captains Mistress has been a revelation since coming across from NZ to join Jason Grimson’s Menangle stable late last year. She has raced 14 times for him for 13 wins, five of them at Group 1 level.

It was that epic Brisbane Inter Dominion final on July 18, when Captains Mistress upstage the Leap To Fame that underlined how special she was.

And she doesn’t have Leap To Fame to deal with this time. He’s skipping the Victoria Cup and will race at Albion Park instead on Saturday night as he prepares for the NZ Cup on November 10.

The enormity of Captains Mistress’ quest to become the first mare to win is underlined by the two modern day great Australasian mares, Blossom Lady and Tailamade Lombo.

They tried unsuccessfully seven times to win the Victoria Cup between them with Blossom Lady’s second in 1994 and third in 1993 their best results.

In more recent times, Bathurst mare Ameretto ran second to Lennytheshark in 2017.

Hart says history doesn’t faze him.

“No, she’s raced against the boys most times I’ve driven her and she’s so good, it doesn’t really cross my mind she is a girl against the boys,” he said.

“If she keeps racing for another 12 or 18 months, I think she’ll do things we’ve never seen before. I think she’ll be remembered as an all-time great like Leap To Fame rightly is.”

Melton holds no fears for Captains Mistress, either. She won her only start at Victoria's home of harness by a thumping 24.6m in the Group 1 Queen of the Pacific on February 14.

Mares also dominate the betting after the barrier draw for Saturday night’s other feature, the Group 1 Bill Collins Trotters’ Sprint.

Gatesys Gem is $2.60 favourite from gate two ahead of I Am Wilma ($6, gate two) and Rockinwithattitude ($6.50, nine).