Captains Mistress winning the 2026 Chariots Of Fire
N just five years the Rising Sun has been one of the biggest and most influential harness races in Australasia and Saturday’s edition shapes as the best yet.
Champions pacers have won three of the five runnings – Leap To Fame (2023), Ladies In Red (2022) and Amazing Dream (2021) - and others have chased them home like Kiwi superstar Copy That, 2024 Inter Dominion winner Don Hugo and Queendland’s emerging star The Janitor.
The race created by Racing Queensland’s David Brick to fill a void for three and four-year-old pacers in the racing calendar has become so much more.
The commanding $1.65 pre-post favourite for this year’s $350,000 Group 1 Rising Sun on Saturday week is champion mare Captains Mistress.
Some already say she’s up with the greatest mares of the modern era.
Captains Mistress has won nine of her 10 starts since moving from NZ late last year to join Jason Grimson’s Menangle stable.
You could argue she should be unbeaten as the fifth to Leap To Fame in the $1 million Miracle Mile was a horror story when she was badly held up in traffic at a crucial stage and lost all chance.
Captains Mistress has two key things on her side, history and a crucial preferential barrier draw.
The first two winners of the Rising Sun were champion four-year-old mares, Amazing Dream and Ladies In Red.
Under the conditions of the race, three-year-olds and female pacers get preferential (the best) barrier draws.
Depending how many three-year-olds run on Saturday week, Captains Mistress will draw somewhere between two and four.
That’s a massive advantage over her key four-year-old male rivals like Kiwi star Marketplace, last year’s TAB Eureka runner-up Fox Dan and last Saturday night’s dazzling Group 2 Redcliffe Cup winner Final Deadline.
The other big winner from the preferential draw is Australia’s best three-year-old, Hollywood Strip, who boasts 13 wins from just 14 starts.
He must draw inside all his key rivals and could land the pole, depending on how many other three-year-olds line-up.
Former Kiwi three-year-old Nymbal also burst into Rising Sun contention with his sparkling Redcliffe Derby win last Saturday night.
Leap To Fame was the first three-year-old to run a place in the Rising Sun when third behind Ladies In Red in 2022 and he returned to win the next year at four.
His stablemate Fate Awaits became the first three-year-old to win the race, largely due to the preferential draw last year. Such is the depth this year, Fate Awaits will be back but is a $31 outsider.
Final Deadline’s trainer Shannon Price summed it up best.
“What a race it’s become,” she said. “It’s really hit the mark with trainers, that’s for sure.
“This is going to be some sort of race. It’s really like a mini Miracle Mile.
“These are the horses coming out after Leap To Fame. Final Deadline is potentially the best horse I’ve trained, but he’s going to need to be in a race like this.”
Fittingly, the winner of the Rising Sun gets a golden ticket to take on Leap To Fame and others in the $1 million Inter Dominion final on July 18.
PHOTO: Captains Mistress - Club Menangle/Pacepix
