Racing: Melody Belle set to return to New Zealand

Melody Belle could target summer classics such as the Captain Cook and Zabeel. Photo / Trish Dunell

Superstar race mare Melody Belle's Australian campaign is almost certainly over and the 10-time Group 1 winner could stick to New Zealand racing from now on.

The 6-year-old was a luckless 11th in the A$500,000 Winx Stakes (1400m) at Randwick in Sydney on Saturday coming on the back of finishing last in her fresh-up race two weeks earlier.

Melody Belle was by no means poor on Saturday and looked like a mare wanting 1600m or even 2000m to show her best.

But trainer Jamie Richards says he will suggest to the mare's connections she returns home, where she hasn't been since February.

Melody Belle crossed the Tasman last summer and never returned, spelling in New South Wales for the winter because of Covid-19 travel restrictions.

Richards realises the $3.5 million earner had no luck on Saturday but also believes her best chance to add to her Group 1 tally is at home.

"She is a very, very good mare but maybe, just maybe, she is a yard off where she was last season," says Richards.

"We don't know that for sure but that is my suspicion, and in Australia, at that level, there are no easy races.

"I think she can come back here and be the horse to beat or close to it in quite a few Group 1s and there are some races here over summer like the Captain Cook and even the Zabeel that she has never tackled before. So I think she might come home next Sunday."

If Melody Belle does arrive home next week race fit, she could have the option of sliding into the Triple Crown races at Hastings, which she dominated last season. But Richards says that is not the plan.

"I'm not saying that won't happen, especially the last two legs over a mile and then the Livamol, but that's not the reason or aim of her coming home, so she is no good thing to turn up in those races."

While Melody Belle's days of campaigning in Australia could be over, stablemate Probabeel suggested she could be in for a lucrative Sydney spring with a barnstorming second over 1200m on Saturday.

"We were very happy with her and she is likely to have one more run and then straight into the Epsom [A$1 million, Randwick, October 3]," says Richards.

Probabeel's huge fresh-up effort propelled her to equal favouritism for the Epsom.

Meanwhile, a fellow Kiwi Group 1 winner in Australia — The Bostonian — could step up to 1600m next start after his seventh in the Winx on Saturday, in which he looked like a horse who would improve with the run.