Delectation’s recent Group One win at Flemington leads Noel Mayfield-Smith to think what might have been with Unequivocal.
As a two-year-old, Unequivocal beat the Chris Waller-trained Delectation and another subsequent Group One winner Peggy Jean over 1200m at Rosehill.
After that race in February 2014, Peggy Jean went on to win the ATC Sires’ Produce Stakes while Unequivocal broke a pastern and spent 10 months away from the track.
It took Delectation until earlier this month to snare his Group One win when he upset Chautauqua in the Darley Classic at Flemington.
Unequivocal runs in a fillies and mares benchmark race at Rosehill over 1400m on Saturday at the fifth start of her spring campaign.
“She beat those good horses early but then she had an accident and needed an operation on her pastern,” Mayfield-Smith said.
“She has been racing well. She wasn’t far away in the Nivison and I’m prepared to overlook her run at Flemington on Melbourne Cup day when the track was biased.
“It was on a par with how Famous Seamus went at Flemington.”
Unequivocal finished seventh in the Group Three Hong Kong Jockey Club Stakes three days after her Group One-winning stablemate Famous Seamus also finished midfield in the Guvera Stakes on the uneven track.
Famous Seamus has since won last Saturday’s Kevin Heffernan Stakes at Sandown.
Unequivocal is a $9.50 chance in an open TAB market headed by the Gai Waterhouse-trained Festivity at $5.
After winning at Kembla Grange on September 8, Unequivocal ran second at Warwick Farm before her sixth in the Group Three Nivison, beaten less than a length in a blanket finish.
Famous Seamus, meanwhile, is enjoying a couple of weeks on a farm before he returns to Mayfield-Smith’s Hawkesbury property.
“There were some thoughts of taking him to New Zealand for one of their summer races but we have decided to go back to his usual program,” Mayfield-Smith said.
“But we will be guided by the tracks. He will travel to wherever the better tracks are.”
