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| Staff Writer |
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For Michael Hawkes, The Everest has been a race full of “what-if” moments.
He, along with legendary father John and brother Wayne, prepared the great Chautauqua for the first Everest, where the three-time TJ Smith winner finished fourth in a leader-dominated race.
But it’s last year that hurts the most. In the same silks, Masked Crusader delivered the same late-charging style before falling a stride short of landing sprinting’s biggest prize and made a late dive that left Nature Strip’s jockey James McDonald head for the winning post.
“We have set him for this race for the past year,” Hawkes said. “With a horse like him, he needs everything to go right, and it nearly did last year.”
In Nature Strip’s tour de force over the last 18 months, he is unbeaten at 1200m with margins of two lengths and 3½ lengths in his two TJ Smiths and a 3¼ length win in the VRC Sprint Classic.
That makes Masked Crusader’s effort to get within a head in The Everest an anomaly and suggests he can dethrone the king.
Masked Crusader hasn’t won since the 2021 Premiere Stakes when he found the firm going to his liking and was at the top of his game. But even on wet tracks, the six-year-old has shown signs he is back to his best with runs in The Shorts and the Premiere Stakes.
“First-up was outstanding,” Hawkes said of closing sixth in The Shorts behind Nature Strip. “Second-up was phenomenal.”
In the Premiere, Masked Crusader got back to the inside late and ran the fastest closing sections when third to Lost And Running in a blanket finish.