Tyler Schiller will complete a hat-trick of wins in the $1 million, Group 2, The Hunter if he can salute on the six-year-old mare Clear Thinking in Saturday’s big feature race at Newcastle.
Schiller took out the last two editions of the race winning aboard Coal Crusher in 2023 and Briasa in 2024 to equal the number of wins in the race by a jockey with Nash Rawiller having put that mark on the board with his wins on Sweet Deal (2020) and Vilana (2022).
Schiller is now looking to go one better.
Should Schiller succeed, he would have won the race on three different horses for three different trainers.
Clear Thinking, who is trained by the Paul Messara and Leah Gavranich training partnership, might need to take a step up here, but it is hard to argue against her being able to do just that, given her outstanding race record of five wins and one runner-up finish from only seven starts, which includes an impressive last start win in the $2 million Kosciuszko on October 18.
She also has a Group 3 second place finish in the Triscay Stakes to her credit.
Being very lightly raced, Clear Thinking clearly has scope for more improvement and Schiller’s decision to stay on the daughter of Dubawi translates to a real vote of confidence in the horse.
It was just six weeks ago that Schiller won the $1 million Premiere Stakes at Randwick on his 2024 The Hunter winner Briasa … and now he has another $1 million race in his sights.
Schiller’s other previous winner of The Hunter … Coal Crusher … will line up again in The Hunter on Saturday. This time, in his third attempt at the race following a win and a third placing in the last two years, the Joe Pride trained chestnut is numbered amongst the opposition to Schiller.
Pride actually has four runners involved in the race as he pushes for another The Hunter win of his own.
In the six runnings of the race to date, only James Cummings (twice) has trained more than one winner of The Hunter … Savatiano in the inaugural running of The Hunter in 2019, and Vilana in 2022.
