Given what he has experienced with Bellatrix Star the past two seasons, Mark Walker is taking a cautious approach with the classy sprinting mare as she edges towards a return to the races.
That is slated to occur this Saturday in the $200,000 Group 3 Sir John Monash Stakes at Caulfield.
The 1100-metre weight-for-age event will be Bellatrix Star’s first start since finishing last in the Listed Doveton Stakes last November, her only outing since finishing down the track in the Group 1 Champions Sprint more than 12 months earlier.
Runner-up to Switzerland in the Group 1 Coolmore Stud Stakes the start prior, Bellatrix Star hasn’t had the opportunity to scale the heights Walker considered her destined for as a mare, but he remains hopeful the rising five-year-old has more to achieve.
“We’ve had a lot of problems with her and she’s been off the scene for a long time,” Walker said.
“She had an accident coming home from the swimming pool, she fractured her neck when a loose horse ran past and she reared up and fell over.
“We got her over that, then she had her first start back and she chipped a fetlock and had to go for fetlock surgery.
“That’s just racing, you take the good with the bad. She’s still very lightly-raced, so if she ran well on Saturday, hopefully we get things back on track.”
Bellatrix Star has won five of her 12 starts, the highlights being Group 2 wins in the Eclipse Stakes (1200m) in New Zealand and the Schillaci Stakes (1100m) against the older horses the start before the Coolmore Stud Stakes.
The daughter of Star Witness has been given a steady build-up, including two trials and two jumpouts, the latter at Cranbourne last Monday when she was a convincing two-length winner over Midnight Devil and Pinstriped.
Craig Williams, who was aboard for Bellatrix Star’s Schillaci Stakes win, was aboard for the latest workout and Walker considers it a positive the premiership-hunting jockey is sticking with her on raceday.
“It was encouraging that Craig rode her in the jumpout and he’s riding her raceday, so that gives us a bit of a push,” Walker said.
Bellatrix Star was one of 19 entries for the Monash Stakes, with her list of potential rivals headed by Matt Smith’s classy gelding Headwall.
