Racing
A Closer Look – Champions Day
Past winners collide in a star-studded Champions Mile
Pride Of Jenni won't be the first horse to complete the Empire Rose Stakes/Champions Mile double if she backs up last weekend's Group 1 win this Saturday at Flemington.
The crowd favourite did the double herself two years ago when she catapulted herself into Australian racing's elite.
The eight-year-old will be looking to win back-to-back races for the first time since that unforgettable week in 2023 when she backs-up in the Group 1 Champions Mile.
Pride Of Jenni has had particular difficulty backing up wins this year, failing to place in all runs immediately following her three earlier wins in 2025.
Her first win of the year came in the Group 2 Peter Young Stakes (1800m), after which she finished second-last as $3.80 favourite in the Australian Cup (2000m).
She bounced back to win the Listed Anniversary Vase (1600m), but then finished 10th of 12 in the Group 1 Doomben Cup (2000m).
Pride Of Jenni spelled after that race and did not start again until the Group 2 Feehan Stakes (1600m) on September 26, which she won, but then finished seventh in the Group 1 King Charles III Stakes (1600m).
The positive for those keen to be with her again this weekend is that she ran a Racing And Sports rating of 125 last week, which was her best performance since going 126 in last year's Feehan Stakes.
But she will most likely have to replicate that to be a chance in the Champions Mile.
Pride Of Jenni ran 125 in her Champions Mile win, the same number that Mr Brightside ran in his win last year.
Mr Brightside, a specialist at the Flemington 1600m, also ran 125 in last year's Makybe Diva Stakes win, having run 124 in his two other wins in that race and 123 when narrowly beaten in this year's All-Star Mile over the Flemington 'mile'.
Ceolwulf is the other runner in the Saturday's race who has run to at least 125, something he did last start when winning the King Charles III Stakes – when Champions Mile foes Mr Brightside, Pride Of Jenni, Pericles and Lake Forest were among the beaten brigade.
The Champions Mile looks the strongest of the three $3 million Group 1s on Champions Day, but the 1200m Champions Sprint could be the most intriguing.
That's in no small part due to glamour colt Tentyris backing up off his dynamic win in last Saturday's Group 1 Coolmore Stud Stakes (1200m).
That son of Street Boss will become only the second Coolmore winner to back-up on Final Day since Cup Week's premier sprint race became a weight-for-age race in 2007.
The only other was Star Witness, who had the misfortune of bumping into Black Caviar in the first of her two Champions Sprint wins and beat home all other rivals, each of whom was a Group 1 winner – Ortensia, All Silent, Melito, Hay List and Eagle Falls.
Star Witness is one of 13 three-year-olds to run in the Champions Sprint since 2007 with Wanted and Loving Gaby, who both also finished second, the others to place.
The only three-year-old to have gone into a Champions Sprint as highly-rated as Tentyris – who earned a mark of 124 for his win last Saturday – was Giga Kick, who went in rated 125 after his win in The Everest but could manage only fifth in the Champions Sprint.
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