'She's lit up our lives' - Via Sistina dominates in Ranvet Stakes to land eighth Group 1 win

The ex-George Boughey-trained Via Sistina continued her dominance in Australia with a second success in the Ranvet Stakes to take her top-level tally to eight, with British challenger Al Mubhir well beaten.

She landed the 2023 Pretty Polly Stakes at the Curragh when based in Newmarket but has become a superstar in Australia since winning this race last season on her first start for top trainer Chris Waller.

The Fastnet Rock seven-year-old won the Cox Plate, the Turnbull Stakes and the Champion Stakes at the Melbourne Cup fixture last year and captured a second Group 1 success of 2025 when powering clear of Lindermann. 

Waller told Racing.com: "She's lit up our lives. We didn't know what we had coming out of quarantine, and obviously we had a good article and a good horse to work with. She's a star. 

"She's a lovely, big, unassuming horse but come race day, she really turns it on. We don't dare light her up in the mornings because what she's capable of, like she's a real powerhouse. 

"Her track rider, Chris Harwood, said if we get her flying one day, she might just keep going as we saw. So, yeah, she's a gentle giant who graces the turf.”

Via Sistina won twice for Joe Tuite before joining Boughey for her four and five-year-old campaign, in which she signed off with a close second in the Champion Stakes at Ascot won by King Of Steel.

James McDonald, voted the world's best jockey in 2024, called her one of the best after his 113th top-level winner.

"She's well up there that's for sure," he said. "She's definitely good. It takes a good one to beat the big boy [Romantic Warrior] though, but she's well up there and she turns up each and every time, which I'm so proud of her because if she was going to get beat, it could have been easily a race like this.

“As we've seen she's getting more versatile. It felt like it was a mile race. She was really tanking up and hence the bead of sweat, so I've earned my money.”

William Haggas and Tom Marquand won the A$1,000,000 (£486,000) contest with Addeybb and Dubai Honour in recent years, but 12-1 shot Al Mubhir finished last of the six runners. The six-year-old's biggest success in Britain came in Sandown's Listed Gala Stakes.

Marquand said: "[He] just did too much on the way around. He just never let go.”

Australia's richest two-year-old race, the Golden Slipper, went to Marhoona. She surged home in the final furlong to land the A$2,800,000 (£1.36m) contest for Michael Freedman and Damien Lane.

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