Winx sets sights on 25th straight win

Winx’s connections quashed a run in the Queen Anne Stakes in June at Royal Ascot but are game for a start in the Queen Elizabeth Stakes on Saturday at Randwick Racecourse in Australia.

Winx is not going abroad anytime soon, but in the Group 1, $1.9 million Queen Elizabeth she’ll be going for her 25th consecutive victory, a mark that would equal that of the great Australian female sprinter Black Caviar. Winx’s 24 straight wins include 17 Group 1’s as well as a triumph a year ago in this very race, which she won by five lengths over Hartnell.

Hartnell, cannon fodder for the mighty mare on multiple occasions, won’t be lining up for this battle, but nine others can take their place in racing history as domestic rivals incapable of keeping Winx from beating her regular path from racetrack to winner’s enclosure. Or so it will be assumed. Winx has gone off favored at odds of 1-5 or lower in her last eight starts and will be a similarly short price Saturday despite having won her most recent race, the George Ryder Stakes on March 24, by just three-quarters of a length over Happy Clapper.

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Happy Clapper is among her nine opponents in the Queen Elizabeth, but it’s Winx who benefits more stretching from the one-mile George Ryder out to 1 ¼ miles in the Queen Elizabeth. Happy Clapper has run decently before over the distance but probably prefers shorter trips, and was beaten nine lengths by Winx a year ago. Humidor came within a half-length of Winx going 10 furlongs last October, but on a longer-term basis isn’t in Winx’s class.

What is left to say about Winx, a 6-year-old Street Cry mare trained by Chris Waller for a three-owner partnership? It was in April 2015 that she last tasted defeat, and while a portion of the global racing voice might decry her connections’ choice to stay at home rather than take on the challenge of international racing, Winx has been among the top-rated horses in the world the last three seasons and has put together a streak that will last as long as racing history. And while she might have won last time by less than one length, she won her first start back from a layoff by seven lengths and generally has been dominant over 10 furlongs.

Hugh Bowman, aboard for the last 21 wins in a row, breaks Winx from post 9 in the Queen Elizabeth, one of four Group 1's on a Randwick card that also includes the Legacy Stakes, a Breeders’ Cup Win and You’re In race linked to the BC Filly and Mare Turf. Post time for the Queen Elizabeth is 1:05 a.m. Eastern. The mare is worth staying up to watch.