On Wednesday night, as a post-script to a post-race interview at Launceston, trainer Adam Trinder confirmed that the champion mare, a winner of seven stakes races, including a G1 Australian Guineas, as well as the inaugural running of the All-Star Mile, was retired from racing and would be prepared for a career as a broodmare.
In a fascinating coincidence, connections of Still A Star (Toronado {Ire}) also confirmed that their mare, who followed in Mystic Journey's footsteps as a Tasmanian trailblazer, had likely run her last race and would be prepared for sale in 2022.
Still A Star
Both mares were stars in their own right, with Still A Star also victorious seven times at stakes level, including a victory over Mystic Journey (third) in the G2 Rose Of Kingston S. at Flemington in October.
However, it was Mystic Journey who would hold the edge in their three-race rivalry across the spring, edging Still A Star out when second to her third in the G2 Let's Elope S. and then finishing second in the G1 Empire Rose S., where Still A Star ran 12th.
Trinder admitted that he would have loved for Mystic Journey to have gone out on a Group 1 win, only to be denied by Colette (Hallowed Crown) in the Flemington feature, but said it took nothing away from her remarkable career.
Adam Trinder, Wayne Roser and Anthony Darmanin
"She has well and truly done enough. She doesn't owe us anything. We owe her everything and while she raced so well, unfortunately she finished second in her last race in a Group 1 and if she had have won that, I definitely would have retired her straight after the race," he said.
"I don’t think she needs to go out a winner. She's got nothing but admiration from us and admiration from the public. We don’t expect any more from her.
"I don’t think she (Mystic Journey) needs to go out a winner. She's got nothing but admiration from us and admiration from the public. We don’t expect any more from her. " - Adam Trinder
"She's letting down lovely. She has been taken off her race feed on to the broodmare feed and is really letting down."
A remarkable Journey
What Mystic Journey was able to achieve in her 28-start career, was not just win 12 races, and earn nearly $4.2 million in prizemoney, but also propel jockey Anthony Darmanin, trainer Trinder and her sire, Needs Further, to prominence that they could have not dreamt of.
Needs Further | Standing at Armidale Stud
Bred by Ralph Zito and partners, she went through the draft of Armidale Stud at the 2017 Magic Millions Tasmanian Yearling Sale, from the second crop of Needs Further, selling to Trinder on behalf of owner Wayne Roser for $11,000. A rich dark brown or black filly, she would be given the stable name 'Betty'.
While there were no stakes winners at that stage in the previous three generations of her dam side of her family, her fourth dam, L'Anno D'Oro (Ire) (Habitat {USA}) was a sister to multiple Group 1-winning sprinter Habibti (Ire) and a half-sister to blue hen mare Eight Carat (GB) (Pieces Of Eight {Ire}). That star mare was already present on the pedigree through her dam, White Gold (NZ), who was by Eight Carat's son Colombia (NZ). Another blue hen, Lady Giselle (Fr) (Nureyev {USA}), features twice in her pedigree as the dam of Zabeel (NZ) and Needs Further's dam, Significant Moment (Bletchingly).
Mystic Journey as a foal
It was something very much on Zito's mind when he purchased White Gold's dam, L'Anello (NZ) (Groom Dancer {USA}) as a weanling.
"We thought she'd never race because she had one bad leg but with those bloodlines, I knew she would do well as a broodmare," Zito told TDN AusNZ in 2019.
"Her second dam, L'Anno D'Oro, was the dam of Lacryma Cristi, and I thought even if she never races, we’ll do an Eight Carat linebred, which is what we did with White Gold."
"Her (L'Anello) second dam, L'Anno D'Oro, was the dam of Lacryma Cristi, and I thought even if she never races, we’ll do an Eight Carat linebred, which is what we did with White Gold." - Ralph Zito
A winner of her first three starts, including a Listed Elwick S., Mystic Journey's major breakthrough came early in her 3-year-old season when she won the Listed Jim Moloney S. at Caulfield.
Five weeks later she sat three deep throughout in the G2 Moonee Valley Fillies' Classic and thrashed a field which contained Group 1 winners El Dorado Dreaming (Ilovethiscity), Krone (Eurozone) as well as multiple Group 1 placegetter Fundamentalist (Not A Single Doubt).
Mystic Journey at Moonee Valley
She returned in the later summer early autumn and disposed of Tasmania's best-credentialed weight for-age horses before tacking the G1 Australian Guineas.
A Flemington fiesta
On a 40-degree day at Flemington, she became the first Tasmanian-trained winner of a Group 1 (or equivalent race) for over a century, defeating Hawkshot (Fiorente {Ire}) and Amphitrite (Sebring), who had won the G1 Thousand Guineas the previous spring.
Two weeks later, she fronted up at Flemington again in the inaugural edition in the All-Star Mile, earning her position in the $5 million race through a wildcard invitation. She was again dominant, defeating Group 1-winning Godolphin pair Hartnell (GB) (Authorized {Ire}) and Alizee (Sepoy).
With the retirement of superstar mare Winx (Street Cry {Ire}) the following month, the Australian racing public was looking for a next star to attach themselves to. The Tassie filly with the battler backstory fitted the bill, but they were impossible shoes to fill.
She began the spring as favourite for the G1 Cox Plate and won the G2 PB Lawrence S. at Caulfield before having her colours lowered by $101 shot Gatting (Hard Spun {USA}) in the G1 Makybe Diva S.
The impossible expectations were beginning to take their toll, in particularly on Trinder, who was wearing much of the scrutiny, and social media abuse, after her shock defeat in that race. She then finished fifth in the G1 Turnbull S. and the pressure grew further.
Luke Currie and Adam Trinder
But Trinder, Roser and the team were determined to push on to the G1 Cox Plate, especially given the way she has won on the same track 12 months earlier. In a competitive race, she loomed briefly at the top of the straight, but the brilliant Japanese mare Lys Gracieux (Jpn) (Heart's Cry {Jpn}) left her in her wake.
Mystic Journey would finish a very creditable fourth, beaten 4l, but from that day, the public expectation of her changed.
She was given an easy time of it by Trinder through the autumn of 2020, with just one start and in the spring would bounce back with an impressive win in the G2 Stocks S. at Moonee Valley. Kept fresh, she was well-supported to win the G1 Empire Rose S. and would finish seventh, beaten less than 2l in a blanket finish.
Mystic Journey and Adam Trinder | Image courtesy of Bronwen Healy
Her autumn of 2021 didn't live up to the mark and she was beaten at short prices in two Tasmanian races before finishing fifth in the G2 Blamey S. as her connections looked to win their way back into the All-Star Mile.
There were suggestions she would be retired at that point, but she was prepared for one more farewell spring tour, featuring three top-class Flemington mares races.
She didn't win any of those, but was placed in all three, emphasising both her class and durability.
The Mystic effect
For Trinder, who has been one of Tasmania's best trainers for some time, she was the horse of a lifetime, one which put him under more pressure than he would have ever expected from his base at Spreyton. However, he handled that pressure with grace and managed her brilliantly throughout.
But Mystic Journey also lifted an entire state's thoroughbred industry, including the Whishaw family's Armidale Stud, the largest breeding operation in Tasmania.
Armidale Stud yearling going through the ring in Tasmania
In 2019, the aftermath of Mystic Journey's Guineas and All-Star triumphs, Needs Further served 103 mares at Armidale, numbers usually unheard of for a Tasmanian stallion. In 2020, the stallion earned a ticket to the mainland, standing at Aquis in Victoria in 2020, and while that didn't work out as planned, the producer of five stakes winners is now back in Tasmania, still attracting broodmare owners looking for the next Mystic Journey.
Armidale Stud was able to use that momentum to bolster its other stallions, notably Alpine Eagle, who served a Tasmanian record 138 mares in 2020.
A Star in her own right
Still A Star was also a trailblazer for her sire, Swettenham Stud's Toronado (Ire), as his first Australian stakes winner. Further stars have followed, including Group 1 winner Masked Crusader, but she set down a marker for the son of High Chaparral (Ire), with a quartet of Tasmanian stakes wins in the summer of 2020, culminating in the Listed Tasmanian Oaks.
Still A Star as a yearling | Image courtesy of Magic Millions
She was picked out for just $13,000 at the 2018 Magic Millions Tasmanian Sale, sold by her breeders at Alva Stud, based at Hagley, not far from Armidale Stud in the picturesque Meander Valley.
The Toronado filly was immediately tagged 'Minnie' by Monica Ryan and her trainer father Bill, as, at that stage, she looked like more a weanling than a yearling.
Like Trinder with Mystic Journey, Bill Ryan would also become a crucial part of the Still A Star story. Ryan had waited a long-time for a horse of her ability, and now, battling a terminal lung condition, he now had a champion on his hands.
Still A Star and Bill Ryan
From his base at Longford in Northern Tasmania, he masterminded, together with his daughter, Still A Star's returned to racing, after she, in an eerie coincidence, also suffered a critical lung issue following those four stakes wins.
The Ryans targetted this year's All-Star Mile. She had won the public vote to get her into the race and off the back of one run in 12 months, a win in the G3 Vamos S., she headed to the $5 million feature as a massive sentimental favourite.
A wet track would be her undoing that day, and she finished 13th, but she proved she was far from a spent force when winning a Listed race at Caulfield in April. She then proved her status among the leading mares in the country with her win in the G2 Rose Of Kingston this spring.
Still A Star winning the G2 Rose Of Kingston S. at Flemington | Image courtesy of Bronwen Healy
Her exact racing future is not yet known, but part-owner Ron Riley told RSN on Wednesday, that she would be sold.
"She's been in the paddock since she has had her last run. She came back from Melbourne a bit worse for wear. But she has picked up really quickly and she is now bucking her brands off," he said.
"But we have decided as a group that we will most likely put her on the market to sell her."
"We have decided as a group that we will most likely put her (Still A Star) on the market to sell her." - Ron Riley
As mares who achieved so much, not only for their connections, but for the Tasmanian thoroughbred industry, it seems slightly unfair that on their likely retirement, that 'Betty' and 'Minnie' don’t get the clear air to have the spotlight in their own right.
But in another way, it seems a totally appropriate way to jointly recognise what Mystic Journey and Still A Star have achieved, both in their own right, and in combination, to highlight the virtues of breeding and racing in the island state.
