The Group III ATC Widden Stakes (1100m) has drawn a field of 10 lovely fillies and none have won a race so we are relying on potential and pedigree to find the winner.
Who will join the Widden's historic honour roll in 2026?
Top pick: HARDANGER
Hardanger was third on debut over 1000m to the one-time Magic Millions boom colt Warwoven (Sword Of State ) who was then sensationally scratched from the big race.
Behind her was the highly rated Gimcrack / Gold Pearl winner Shiki (Too Darn Hot), so she kicked off her career in very strong company, and trainer Michael Freedman has applied blinkers - always a significant gear change for the babies.
Hardanger is a Godolphin blueblood through and through. The legacy of mighty Lonhro lives on - he is now one of the country's leading broodmare sires, and any two year old filly out of a Lonhro mare commands attention.
There wouldn't be many of those better or indeed more precociously bred than the dam of Hardinger, Gloriette.
The daughter of Snitzel's full sister and G3 winner Viennese (dam of seven winners) placed on debut in the G3 Maribyrnong Trial Stakes and was Listed placed at The Valley over 1200m in her five starts as a juvenile, winning at three over 1100m and retiring soon after.
Hardanger is Gloriette's fifth foal. The daughter of Lonhro struck gold early with her first, the filly Arcaded (Street Boss) a winner of the G2 Blue Diamond Fillies Prelude and G3 Magic Night in Sydney, retained by Godolphin and with progeny yet to race.
Gloriette visited Epaulette for her next two coverings which produced Shako (a 2yo winner, now racing successfully in QLD) and the three time winning filly Glorioso who sadly died in 2025 just after her fourth birthday.
Gloriette's 2022 foal is a Street Boss colt named Hetzendorf, a winner from five starts to date, and he was followed by Hardanger.
Gloriette slipped to Astern in 2024 before producing a colt to Darley's headline act, the Street Boss son Anamoe, and was then covered by another in Traffic Warden.
The genetic similarity between Street Boss and Pinatubo is obvious - the former's sire Street Cry is a full brother to Helsinki, the dam of Shamardal - and Hardanger's sire Pinatubo is Shamardal's best performed son to go to stud.
Pinatubo was a deadset freak of a two year old, undefeated in six outings with two G1 victories in the time honoured Dewhurst and National Stakes and was duly awarded the European Champion 2YO Colt Title of 2019.
His stakes winning second and third dams by Dalakhani and Barathea respectively, were both middle distance types themselves but have both produced highly precocious progeny, which is not surprising because Pinatubo's third dam is the unraced El Jazirah, a full sister to Blue Hen Rafha, the dam of breedshaper and sire of sires Invincible Spirit and of the hugely successful Kodiac (sire of Cambridge Stud's NZ Champion First Season Sire Hello Youmzain)
Her dam Eljaazi was originally an inspired choice as a foundation mare for the breeding empire of Sheikh Faisal bin Khaled bin Abdulaziz-Al Saud. She was imported into Australia in 2002 at the grand old age of 21. The amazing old mare had more to give before her death just three years later, one of her two Australian bred foals being Al Anood (Danehill) dam of the dual G1 juvenile hero and now leading sire Pride Of Dubai.
Al Anood is the dam of this year's Widden contender Pearl Of Dubai (Wootton Bassett)
A slew of global stakeswinners descend from Eljazzi and her daughters - not just great sires, but great female racers like G1 winners Uni and Chinese White.
Our own incomparable champion speedsire "Vinnie” by Invincible Spirit is doubly prepotent being out of a mare by Canny Lad, by Bletchingly - a member of the Twine The Plaiden (7-a) tribe to which Danzig, Rockefella (x2 in Rafha) and Eljazzi herself belong. This great family loves to be duplicated and we have countless examples of success on the track and in the stud to attest to that fact.
Pinatubo's very first stakes placed juvenile in Australia, the G3 Maribyrnong Plate runner up Tale Of Time is - no surprises here - out of an I Am Invincible mare.
In Hardanger’s pedigree it is of course none other than Redoute’s Choice who provides the blood of Danzig and Canny Lad, and her pedigree also features a lot of intensive linebreeding to the 7 family in general.
Hardanger is bred
Storm Bird 5m x 5f sex balanced
Mr Prospector 5m,6m x 5m
Storm Bird = tough precocity, and he is a successful inbreeding subject particularly when combined with good Classic blood as here.
Australian G1 winning fillies Maybe Discreet and Faint Perfume were inbred to Storm Bird using Pinatubo's sire Shamardal. Both were Oaks winners, but also won as two year olds.
Notably too, Lonhro’s Blue Diamond winning / Golden Slipper placed filly Lyre was bred on the Street Cry cross.
Hardanger's supremely precocious damline, enhanced by linebreeding to the famous speedsires In Reality, Relic and Lunchtime and to Blue Hens Natalma, Cosmah, and Special, bids to further enhance the early speed factor here.
The filly also carries sex balanced duplications of Petition, Forli, Never Bend, Hornbeam and Round Table, and of the Turn-To line sires Hail To Reason, Halo, Roberto, Habitat and Sir Ivor.
Hardanger and Tommy Berry should get the chance to show their best from barrier 7.
Next best: MISS SCANDAL
Once upon a time, before the “import era” evened things up a bit, we feared the might (and power!l) of the all conquering Kiwi stayer.
But, as our mates across the ditch habitually smacked us around in the Cups department, Aussies at least felt that we had it over them with our sprinters. Not any more.
Of course fine sprinters have always been reared on the lush paddocks of NZ - but in recent years things have gone next level.
It’s the Kiwis who can boast they've bred the world’s fastest horse, the superfreak Ka Ying Rising, not us. They bred his Newmarket Hcp winning sire Shamexpress too.
It’s the Kiwis who bred champions like Lucky Sweynesse, I Wish I Win and our current star sprinter Jimmysstar.
What they haven't done in close to four decades - since the great filly Courtza zoomed home in 1989 - is breed a Golden Slipper winner.
Octagonal went mighty close when runner up to Flying Spur in 1995, and two years before Courtza, the Sir Tristram colt Marauding had taken the glittering prize.
But the way the Kiwi breeders are travelling of late, no one would be shocked if this filly became the next youngster out of the Shaky Isles to claim the Holy Grail of Australasian juvenile racing.
Miss Scandal was bred and offered by Westbury Stud as a Karaka Book 1 yearling where she was a $320,000 buy for Mulcaster Bloodstock / Chris Waller Racing.
She has trialled twice, for a close second to the Breeders Plate winner Incognito followed by a strong third.
This filly is a lovely mover and covers ground rather effortlessly, like the best athletes do. Track watchers like what they have seen and have installed her as a firm favourite.
The strapping youngster is a daughter of I Am Invincible's dual G1 winning son Home Affairs from the winning More Than Ready mare Kylie's Fame, a half sister to the stakes winning 2YO filly Madeenaty (Exceed And Excel)
Miss Scandal is the fourth foal from Kylie's Fame whose other two to race are the winner Famoso (Invader) and three year old placed filly My Testimony (Star Witness) who has just commenced racing in WA.
Kylies Fame now resides in Australia and her 2026 Karaka Book 2 Tarzino filly was born here. She sold for $75,000 to Clotworthy Racing at the just completed sale, and the mare was covered by Hawaii Five Oh for this year's foal.
Kylie's Fame was the first foal from the gifted and fast Reset mare Set For Fame, a 2YO winner, a a three time G2 sprint winner and runner up in the G1 Australian Guineas for Peter Moody, who bought her as an Inglis Premier Yearling for $75,000 in 2008.
Set For Fame is still breeding but has produced only six named foals - four have raced, three are winners with the juvenile stakes winner Madeenaty (Exceed And Excel) her best to date.
Set For Fame's filly by Shalaa Miss Harlow was a $500,000 Waterhouse/Bott yearling purchase but never raced and is at stud.
Her 2024 Hellbent colt will be offered by Northmore Thoroughbreds as Lot 320 at the upcoming Inglis Premier.
She has a 2025 filly by Toronado and was covered again by him.
Set For Fame's dam was the winning North Point, by the great filly sire Dehere and her grand dam was the fast Listed winning mare Northern Bisque (Tolomeo), a black type producer .
Miss Scandal's fifth dam is Ayala by Biscay who was a two time juvenile winner and a full sister to none other than Widden's incredible supersire Bletchingly.
Northern Bisque was the best of her five winners, and this is the immediate and speedy family of stakes winners Beaches, Quick Decision, Rubicalll and her Caulfield Guineas placed son Divine Calling, Dial Tones, Mingling Glances, Bidi Babe, Queen's Command, Shazee Lee and Sportivo.
Miss Scandal is bred
Danzig 5m,5m x
Mr Prospector 5f x 5m sex balanced (with additional sex balanced lines in further removes)
Obviously everything said above about the Eljazzi / Rafha / Danzig / Rockefella / Bletchingly nick applies to this filly, as it's her own tribe.
Her damsire More Than Ready is key for Home Affairs - providing another Northern Dancer daughter to match Home Affairs’ dual lines to Blue Hen Fanfreluche through his sire Southern Halo - who is a close relative of Miswaki - plus more Turn-To, more Buckpasser. more La Troienne.
Dehere is closely allied genetically with Fanfreluche sharing a number of close up ancestors while Reset sex balances Nureyev and Sir Ivor and boosts the Chelandry family / Raise A Native cross on I Am Invincible's damline via Zeditave.
Both More Than Ready and Reset descend from daughters of Turn-To son First Landing, the American Champion 2YO of 1958 - and this picks up nicely with the two Sir Ivor daughters from whom descend Green Desert and Flying Spur.
Miss Scandal is linebred (sex balanced) to Nureyev, Sir Ivor, Native Dancer, My Babu and Herbager.
Miss Scandal has J Mac in the saddle and they will jump from barrier 6.
Roughie: TATIANA
First time on a good track at her third race start for this royally bred Street Boss filly, bred on the hugely successful Street Cry / Exceed And Excel nick which has produced 9 SW including Winterbottom Stakes hero Elite Street and the star juveniles Tentyris, Hanseatic, Tempted and Traffic Warden.
The Gary Portelli trained Tatiana debuted with a nice fourth to the well bred Knightsbridge over 1000m at Randwick on a Soft 5 and that colt by Farnan subsequently ran a creditable fifth in the MM Classic on the Gold Coast.
I can forgive her average second up run on a rapidly deteriorating soft 7 where she got shuffled out of her ground early and just never really got going. The filly had previously won a trial on synthetic, and on breeding firm tracks will certainly be her preference.
Tatiana is another homebred for Godolphin and is out of the super speedy Jorda, twice a stakes winner at two of the Listed Gimcrack Stakes and the G3 Kennedy Plate on VRC Oaks Day and a half sister to stakes placed juvenile Pursuits ( Lonhro) and Catalonia (Flying Spur).
She is the third foal from her dam and the mating works - Tatiana is a full sister to the year older filly Motorsports who won the G3 Blue Sapphire at Caulfield last spring at just her third race start (two wins and a second at three, she was unraced at two)
Jorda's first foal by Lonhro was a winner and she produced a filly to Anamoe in 2024 before missing to Pinatubo.
Her dam Montmelo by Viscount won at two and placed in the Silver Shadow Stakes. She was a half sister to the smart juvenile Le Mans and this is a prolific early running family to which also belongs the champion filly She's Extreme (Extreme Choice) - runner up in the G1 ATC Sires Produce and winner of the G1 Champagne Stakes at two, runner up in the G1 Flight Stakes and winner of the G1 VRC Oaks at three.
This damline goes back to Aulone whose Gimcrack Stakes winning daughter Civic Pride (by Widden’s supersire Ajax) was the dam of champion Amneris ( ancestress of the magnificent sprinter Hay List) and she, with other daughters of Aulone founded a prolific and famous family which still thrives.
The speedster who lined up in the Magic Millions Classic as favourite, Zip Lock, descends from a daughter of Civic Pride - and he is sired by the excellent Hellbent, who in turn descends from a daughter of Valais (who was bred x 2 to him through the sire of Ajax, Heroic)
Another current high profile descendant of Civic Pride is the fine stallion Castelvecchio.
Tatiana is bred
Northern Dancer x5m,5m
She is linebred to most notably Blushing Groom, Raise A Native / Native Dancer, My Babu / Djebel / Tourbillon and to Bull Lea.
Duplications of Blue Hens Natalma and Cosmah and many lines to La Troienne underpin this high quality pedigree.
Tatiana and Alysha Collett jump from barrier 10.
Blowout: MACHRIHANISH
There is quite a fascinating pedigree behind this filly by the runaway Golden Slipper winner Stay Inside.
Her first trial behind stablemate, the beautifully bred Satin Summer (Written Tycoon) at Rosehill was pleasing, and that filly has since come out and won impressively on debut.
In her second trial Machrihanish went back and was okay to the line without being ridden out, I don't take much from it really - more importantly in both trials she has looked like she has a good attitude and is a very nice mover.
Stay Inside, Newgate Farm's son of the sensational Extreme Choice, is off to a promising start at stud with his son Incognito taking the G3 Breeders Plate (also trained by Michael Freedman, the $1m colt will resume as favourite in the Canonbury Stakes on Saturday) while daughter Lassified took out the Listed Wellesley Stakes at Trentham.
The dam of Machrihanish was imported from the USA in 2022 after being purchased by the Freedmans (who trained Stay Inside) for US S220,000 at the 2021 Fasig-Tipton Fall Mixed Sale.
Named I'llhandlethecash, this Listed winning daughter of Dynaformer’s excellent son Point Of Entry raced nineteen times in the States and collected three wins racing at seven different tracks - an honest, talented and tough mare.
Her dam by the mighty Ghostzapper (the broodmare sire of Justify no less) was also a Listed winner and descends from Canadian champion 3YO Filly Too Late Now.
I'llhandlethecash has a colt and a filly on the ground by Stay Inside and was returned to him again.
American bloodlines produce two year olds suited to our conditions and style of racing. They only race one way over there at all ages and stages of their careers, and that's with the pedal to the metal from start to finish.
So they've been bred for many generations now to ping the gates, hang tough and sustain high cruising speed, which is exactly the scenario faced in our high pressure juvenile races!
The size and scope typical of US bred mares is a bonus too. Their strengths are a perfect foil for the type and electric speed of our sprint bred stallions.
Stay Inside’s sixth dam is the 1942 Widden Stakes winning filly Magic Wand.
Point Of Entry gets some big ticks in the broodmare sire department being a grandson of Roberto ( who often pops up on the damside of juvenile stakeswinners) and a descendant of the fine US racemare and broodmare Maplejinsky. This daughter of the incomparable Nijinsky II ( let's give him his full title) did not race at two and only briefly at three but she had a heap of ability and won two G1s in her nine starts, before commencing a breeding career which produced a champion (1994 Eclipse Award winner Sky Beauty, an influential broodmare) and two G1 producing daughters, one of them being the ancestress of Macrihanish, Our Country Place by Pleasant Colony.
Though ultimately unraced, that filly had greatly impressed track watchers as a juvenile. At stud she left the G1 Breeders Cup Distaff winner Pleasant Home and her full sister the two time G2 Country Hideaway, both by Seeking The Gold. Daughter Silence Beauty (Sunday Silence) became dam of multiple G1 winner and sire Tale Of Ekati.
The elite producer Maplejinsky sold for megabucks to Japan in 1994 but later was returned to the USA where she died in 2003. She is buried at Three Chimneys Farm.
Notably this great mare was a half sister to one of the fastest horses to ever look through a bridle, Danzig's champion sprinter and GB HOTY Dayjur.
Their dam was the Mr Prospector daughter Gold Beauty.out of the unraced Hail To Reason mare Hail To Beauty (this is also the immediate family of the damsire of Sunday Silence)
3 x G1 winner Point Of Entry is sex balanced to not only Hail To Reason and Mr Prospector but to His Majesty, along with dual lines to Blue Hen daughters of Hasty Road - he really does have the most fantastic lineage for a broodmare sire.
Extreme Choice carries Hasty Road's half brother Traffic Judge and Nijinsky via a daughter, more great nicks for Stay Inside.
Extreme Choice is from the 12c family as is Roberto and his G1 winner She's Extreme (G1 Champagne, VRC Oaks) and Gimcrack winner Bel Merci are out of mares carrying Roberto.
Macrihanish is strongly linebred (sex balanced) to His Majesty - the damsire of Danehill ( x 2 in Stay Inside) and of Dynaformer, and the sire of Pleasant Colony.
Machrihanish can outrun her big odds I reckon and she will launch with Chad Schofield aboard from barrier 1.
