Gai Waterhouse excited by £1.2m Melbourne Cup hope Hoo Ya Mal

Gai Waterhouse used a trip to Britain to unearth future Melbourne Cup winner Fiorente in 2012 and believes she might have pulled off the same trick this year, talking up her new £1.2 million purchase Hoo Ya Mal.

A regular visitor to British shores in past summers, Waterhouse was speaking to the Racing Post for a major interview in Sunday's newspaper on her first trip to Britain for three years and discussed her own remaining ambitions, including a Royal Ascot winner, the state of the sport in Britain and Australia, and how she followed in the footsteps of her legendary father TJ Smith.

Since taking over from Smith in 1992, the 67-year-old has made her own enormous mark on racing, with Alligator Blood – potentially bound for Ascot next year – last month providing her with a 150th Group 1 win.

Just one Melbourne Cup has come her way, with Fiorente, who had won the Group 2 Princess of Wales's Stakes for Sir Michael Stoute when Waterhouse was at Newmarket in 2012, finishing second in the great race for her later that year before going one better in 2013. But Derby runner-up Hoo Ya Mal could soon bid to double that tally.

Hoo Ya Mal at Goffs: the Derby runner-up was bought for £1.2mCredit: Goffs

"We saw Hoo Ya Mal race second in the Derby and put an offer in straight away," she said. "The owner thought about it but said he wanted to go to the Goffs Sale [on the eve of Royal Ascot] so we went there and that's where we purchased him.

"The reserve was £900,000, so you know you're going to be paying £1 million-plus and I thought we bought him well, especially as since then the form has been so incredibly strong and consistent."

As well as winning the Melbourne Cup, Fiorente was a force to be reckoned with in the top weight-for-age races in Australia and Waterhouse has similar ambitions with Hoo Ya Mal.

"The Melbourne Cup is the dream but I think he's a weight-for-age horse and I like him hugely," she said. "I think at the time he was undersold but who is to say and time will tell. They're hard to buy. It's like getting the scoop story, they don't come up all the time."

Read more from Gai Waterhouse in The Big Read, available in Sunday's newspaper or online for Members' Club Ultimate subscribers from 6pm on Saturday. Click here to sign up.

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