Jimmysstar (NZ) (Per Incanto) may not run again this season, with connections still to decide on the best path to take into a potentially mouth-watering spring clash with Hong Kong star Ka Ying Rising (NZ) (Shamexpress).
While further Group One conquests in Brisbane this winter are being considered for last Saturday’s Gr.1 All Aged Stakes winner, managing part-owner Ozzie Kheir said on Tuesday he feels it may be best for the horse to take his spell and to reset for a likely shot at October’s The Everest.
“It is obviously really tempting to keep him going, so we’re leaving the door open for a race like the Kingsford-Smith, but my preference, at this stage, is to put him away and get him ready for The Everest,” Kheir said on Tuesday.
“I’m convinced we haven’t seen the best of him yet as the penny has just dropped with him and there is a feeling that he’s done his job this time in.
“He seems to have come of age this preparation and he’s still so lightly raced, so he’s in a great position to come back even better in the spring.
“The Everest came into the conversation after he won the Oakleigh Plate first-up and Saturday’s win certainly did nothing to change our mind.
“He’s gone from a bit of a hero to a villain to a star, so it’s been some sort of ride with him.”
Jimmysstar was purchased out of New Zealand after just three runs in the spring of 2023 and he immediately made an impression with easy Benchmark wins at Bendigo, Cranbourne and Caulfield, before a string of four upset losses – three of them as odds-on favourite – last autumn.
He performed well in the spring before appearing this autumn as a much-improved horse with Gr.1 wins in the Oakleigh Plate and All Aged supported by luckless Gr.1 efforts in the William Reid Stakes (third) and T.J. Smith Stakes (fourth).
If he was to start again this season, Kheir indicated the A$1 million Kingsford-Smith Cup (1300m) – to be run at Eagle Farm under weight-for-age conditions on May 31 – is the most likely race.
Kheir has enjoyed a great season to date, being part-owner of seven Gr.1 winners. It is a way off his best season in 2021-22 when he was part-owner of 11 Gr.1 winners such as Verry Elleegant, Incentivise and Sir Dragonet, but Kheir said he is delighted with the results.
“We came into the new season hoping we could contend for a few Group 1s and hopefully win one or two, so to have seven is a great result,” he said.
Of trainer Ciaron Maher’s 10 Gr.1 winners this season, Kheir and his partners have supplied five of them in the shape of Jimmysstar (two), Light Infantry Man (two) and Gringotts.
Kheir’s other Gr.1 wins were with Buckaroo in the Underwood Stakes and Leica Lucy in the New Zealand Oaks.
Buckaroo and the returning Soulcombe remain Kheir’s final chances for further G1 success this season, with the pair aiming up at the Gr.2 Hollindale Stakes (1800m) on the Gold Coast on May 10, followed by the Gr.1 Doomben Cup (2000m) at Eagle Farm two weeks later.