Joliestar can take big step toward Royal Ascot in Sydney super sprint for Sir Brendan Lindsay

New Zealand-owned Joliestar (gold and black) is second-favourite for today's A$3 million TJ Smith at Randwick.

TODAY’S RACING

** Ellerslie, first race 11.48am

** Riverton, first race 11.38am

** Addington harness, first race 1.38pm (Trackside 2)

** Randwick, The Championships Day 1, first race 2.25pm NZ time

** Caulfield, first race 2.10pm NZ time

Sir Brendan Lindsay’s unfinished Royal Ascot business leads through Randwick today.

While an A$3 million ($3.62m) Group 1 race isn’t usually a lead-up to something bigger, for Joliestar today’s TJ Smith may be just that.

The wonderful mare gives Lindsay and his wife Lady Jo a huge chance at winning arguably Australia’s second-most-important sprint race after The Everest, and doing so would put an exclamation mark on her Australian career.

But victory in today’s speedster showdown on the first day of The Championships will set Joliestar up for her even bigger aim of 2026, the Queen Elizabeth II Jubilee Stakes at Royal Ascot in June.

The Lindsays are in the incredibly rare position of having already owned the winner of the 1200m glamour sprint on the last day of the Royal Ascot meeting, when Hello Youmzain triumphed in 2020.

But because of Covid-enforced travel restrictions, they had to watch that race from New Zealand, rather than being at Ascot as they intend to be should Joliestar make it there this year.

That will put them in the most rarefied of racing air: while partially Kiwi-owned sprint star Nature Strip won the King’s Stand over 1000m at Group 1 on the first day of Royal Ascot in 2023 for Joliestar’s trainer-jockey combination of Chris Waller and James McDonald, it is likely there has never been a solely New Zealand-owned Royal Ascot winner.

While today’s super sprint won’t be make or break for Joliestar’s Ascot campaign, if she goes there having won today she will rocket to the head of the Royal Ascot market, especially with world champion Kiwi sprinter Ka Ying Rising not going to England.

And for the Lindsays, winning a Group 1 at Royal Ascot is one thing, winning one and being there to enjoy it in person would be quite another and would cap a magical first half of 2026 for Cambridge Stud.

Joliestar is rated the $4 second-favourite on what should be a good track at Randwick today, up against flying three-year-old Tentyris, former Everest winner Giga Kick, Briasa and former New Zealand galloper Jimmysstar, who is still part-owned here.

From barrier 5, if Joliestar can settle midfield off a genuine speed, she will be awfully hard to hold out and victory would take her past NZ$10m in stakes.

She isn’t the only or even main New Zealand flag flyer at Randwick today, with New Zealand Derby winner Road To Paris a serious chance in the A$2m Australian Derby.

The Roger James/Robert Wellwood-trained three-year-old is anything but the finished product mentally, but he can stay – and if they go hard, he will be charging late for jockey Zac Purton in a race where plenty of his rivals have yet to prove their staying credentials.

The A$4m Doncaster boasts plenty of New Zealand interest too, in Gringotts, Linebacker and the Kiwi-owned pair of Autumn Boy and Evaporate, against three-year-old filly Sheza Alibi carrying just 49kg.

Big day for stable

While Randwick’s huge-money meeting will be the focus of the weekend for most punters, Ellerslie hosts one of its more relaxed meetings of the season today.

After a mammoth start to 2026 with the Karaka Millions, NZ Oaks and Champions Day meetings, there will be lower stakes and fewer suits at today’s nine-race meeting, with the rare pre-noon start time of 11.48am.

As tends to be the case at this stage of the season, much of the attention will be on who or what emerges from the juveniles in Race 1, the three-year-olds in Race 4 or the ones who dominate the strong maiden Race 5.

Trainer Shaun Clotworthy has one of the more interesting teams in for the day, with a mix of the old and the new.

The $1.6m earner Hezashocka has returned to the stable after a top career in Australia but was disappointing fresh-up on a wet track, and Clotworthy hopes new jockey Opie Bosson can give him a line on where the veteran stands after Race 3 today.

“It is a big drop in class and while he has a decent weight, it will be interesting to see how he goes and what Opie has to say,” says Clotworthy.

The stable has last-start winner Celtic Warrior (R4, No 1) in the strong three-year-old race, with Clotworthy’s only concern being that he might already be looking for a longer trip than today’s 1600m.

“He has to be a good chance though, and we have Espadas in the open 1300m and it is a tough field, but he is a horse who needs the racing.”

Michael Guerin wrote his first nationally published racing articles while still in school and started writing about horse racing and the gambling industry for the Herald as a 20-year-old in 1990. He became the Herald’s Racing Editor in 1995 and covers the world’s biggest horse racing carnivals.