Trainer Robert Heathcote would not have been holding his breath, but you can imagine he might have fallen off his chair when the chestnut mare Abounding finally came up with a single-figure barrier draw (barrier number 6) for Saturday’s Group 1 Tattersall’s Tiara at Eagle Farm.
A four-year-old chestnut mare, Abounding had not jumped from a barrier draw inside of number ten in all of her last seven starts, a disadvantage which arguably had an impact on her results, particularly allowing for the fact that all of those runs were in feature race company, where often you need all the favours you can get.
There were certainly no bad runs in there at all … just runs in difficult circumstances. In fact, there is a win in that sequence of runs and, were Abounding to fight back and salute on Saturday in the Tatts Tiara, there might be some symmetry in the way things unfold as her last win came at a Tatts meeting back on November 27 in the Listed Tattersall’s Classic. It is a Tattersalls meeting on Saturday.
The hot run of form in Abounding’s race record that the Heathcote trained runner will be trying to recapture came when she landed successive wins in the Listed Gold Edition in December 2023 and then the big one in the $3 million Magic Million’s Guineas in January 2024.
While that does go back a bit in time, the fact that Abounding has finished largely on the fringe of the placings in feature races against some quality horses suggests another feature race win is not out of the question.
Abounding’s results in the eleven races she has contested since that lucrative Magic Millions win include a fourth place finish in last year’s Group 1 Tatts Tiara where she finished a little over two lengths behind no other than the mighty, $22 million winning mare Bella Nipotina … and runs in the Group 2 Dane Ripper, the Mick Dittman and the Nudgee Stakes (both Listed races) in which Abounding finished less than 1.75 lengths behind the winner.
In her last two starts … from those wide barriers remember … Abounding finished sixth in the Group 3 BRC Sprint, 4.40 lengths behind War Machine, who went in to win The Stradbroke in his next start, and sixth in the Group 2 Dane Ripper behind Floozie who is currently on a four race unbeaten winning streak.
That’s not too shabby a return … more than enough to keep Abounding in the game here although it will still be a tough ask, as any Group 1 always is.
Abounding clearly still needs to find a few lengths in order to be able to have a major say in Saturday’s outcome, but a fair barrier draw … at last … has now, in part at least, helped open up the door to a opportunity for her to do just that.
Abounding is currently quoted at odds of $15 with online betting sites.
