For the past three years, world champion sprinter Nature Strip has turned up at Royal Randwick on the first day of The Championships and blown away his rivals over 1200m in the group 1 TJ Smith Stakes.
Now he has a record fourth TJ in his sights in what shapes as one of the best races on Australian soil this century.
Chris Waller gives three-time TJ Smith winner Nature Strip a pat after his final hit-out at Rosehill. Credit:Brook Mitchell
Nature Strip has forged his career by putting distance between himself and Australia’s best sprinters, a feat he repeated on the world stage in the King’s Stand Stakes at Royal Ascot last year.
But there is a truism in racing: older horses don’t get faster, their rivals do.
Nature Strip is now an eight-year-old and is not the favourite for this year’s TJ. But he is still the reference point for the race, which means Clayton Douglas, the 28-year-old trainer of top fancy Giga Kick, spends as much time addressing the champion as he does his own rising star ahead of Saturday’s showdown.
“It is a serious race and it will be a great race to watch,” Douglas says. “It’s the sort of race I would make sure I watched and probably watch replays of over again. I’m a bit more invested with Giga Kick. I’m excited, excited for the challenge.
“I watched Nature Strip’s replays of winning three TJs; it’s phenomenal he’s going for four. I would just like to win one and it would make my and Giga Kick’s career.”
Giga Kick beat Nature Strip in The Everest in the spring with a burst reminiscent of that other great TJ Smith champion, Chautauqua.
The grey flash Chautauqua won his trio of TJs by swooping on the leaders with sizzling closing sectionals, whereas Nature Strip notched his treble by breaking the hearts of his opposition with sustained speed off the front.
“He is so powerful and so big. He gets into his high cruising speed and it just builds and builds,” says James McDonald, who has been in the saddle for each of Nature Strip’s TJ triumphs. “He normally doesn’t hit his top until the 300-metre mark, and by then he is out on his own a lot of time.
“He is in full flight at the 300, but then he keeps going for another furlong, and the last 100 is where he can be vulnerable. But when he is in his career-best form, he sustained it and runs a strong six [furlongs]. He has been in that form on TJ day for the last three years.”
Nature Strip in full flight winning the TJ Smith in 2020.Credit:Getty
Douglas has Australia’s Hong Kong star Zac Purton on his three-year-old, which was born on the day Nature Strip ran fourth in his first Everest on 2019 and had already won two of his nine group 1s.
“The 1200m at Randwick suits us. He has been there before and done it against these horses,” Douglas says. “He will be giving Nature Strip a big start because of the way they race.
“But when he was full bore in The Everest, he showed his qualities by standing them up a big margin and winning. It’s the exciting thing about him – I can see him coming, but you never get used to how quick he comes.
“Nature Strip is a superstar of the sport. He is a horse not to be underestimated because he has done it all over the world. Hopefully, we can knock him off on Saturday.”
The quality of the field is such that it isn’t restricted to one or two chances. Half a dozen runners have the speed and the talent to win, which makes this TJ Smith a race from the ages.
The old bull Nature Strip will be out in front, with Mazu and Private Eye just in behind him in the next part of field. Then will come the young upstarts ready to prove themselves. And then there’s Golden Eagle winner I Wish I Win and Lost And Running.
Giga Kick launches to Everest victory over Private Eye at Randwick in October.Credit:Getty
Giga Kick is favourite, but Godolphin’s In Secret isn’t that far from him and Nature Strip in the betting.
In Secret’s trainer, James Cummings, knows the horse to beat if his flying filly is to win.
“It’s not going to be easy to beat Nature Strip if the track is opened up and he’s able to control it,” Cummings says. “He has shown how effective he is under those circumstances.
“He has been the horse for a long time. He has started an odds-on favourite in The Everest and all the biggest sprints in the country and won this race three times.
In Secret races clear in the Newmarket Handicap at Flemington.Credit:Getty
“He went to Royal Ascot and bolted in. These types of horses don’t come along every day, and people don’t appreciate how hard it is to beat them.”
That doesn’t stop Cummings from feeling there is a hope with the right run in transit for In Secret.
“I think we have the best three-year-old filly,” he says. “She was unbelievable in the Newmarket, but she is going to have a lot to do in this race. It is shame she drew so wide, but she is special.”
Private Eye’s jockey, Brenton Avdulla, has seen a lot of Nature Strip off in the distance in the past couple of years but is confident he can get past the champion again after beating him home in The Everest last year.
“When they are as good as Nature Strip, you start to look at them differently to see what makes them so good,” Avdulla says.
“I have only run past him once, and that was in The Everest [on Private Eye], and then Giga Kick ran past me, so it was a little disappointing.
“When Nature Strip is in the zone, he is obviously so dominant you just can’t seem to make ground on him. Private Eye is an off-speed sprinter that is going to get there late if he is going to beat Nature Strip.”
Nature Strip’s trainer, Chris Waller, says he will enjoy this year’s race without the burden of expectation that has followed his star sprinter for the majority of his career.
“He is never the same horse in the spring,” Waller says. “The autumn is his time. It’s when we see the best of Nature Strip. He looks fantastic in his coat. It has come through, which is always a good sign with him.
“He might be a big, strong, imposing horse that has got speed and he can sustain it for quite a while, but if he gets it just a little wrong, they will get their chance to beat him.
“It’s more enjoyable to watch because he is not going out an odds-on; he isn’t even favourite on the weekend. With a horse like Nature Strip, there is always pressure, but I can enjoy it with him in this year’s TJ Smith.”
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