Patient thinking for Arrowfield blueblood

That the Paul Messara and Leah Gavranich trained Clear Thinking has even seen a racetrack is somewhat of a surprise, with the now four-year-old mare originally purchased as a broodmare proposition for Arrowfield Stud from Queen Elizabeth II.

By leading English sire Dubawi (Dubai Millenium), Clear Thinking is out of Sweet Idea (Snitzel) who won the 2015 Group 1 The Galaxy (1100m) for Gai Waterhouse, along with four Group 2 races, also placing at Group 1 level four times, including in the 2013 Golden Slipper behind stablemate Overreach.

“She was with the Queen but had a stifle cyst and went lame so they pulled the pin at that stage and then probably thought about it more as a broodmare and sold it to us… there’s a very common procedure where they put a screw in the middle of it,” co-trainer Paul Messara said.

“Every horse we’ve ever done this to has raced and raced successfully and won races… the cyst just fills in basically and away you go so we did the surgery when she came out here, re x-rayed her a few weeks later and she was perfect, we haven’t had a problem with her since.”

Clear Thinking has clearly flourished as a racehorse, evidenced by her 8.2 length win at her home track Scone on debut over 1000m, and the stable are happy to keep her close to home for the time being, favouring a 1200m Class 1 on Sunday over Saturday’s Class 3 Highway Handicap at Randwick.

“I think she just needs another kind of low-pressure race where she can be afforded to get a few things wrong because she doesn’t know what it’s all about yet,” Messara said.

“I just want to make sure she’s one hundred per cent before we take her to town.”

“She’s a really valuable broodmare proposition but we probably will race her on now, the original plan was to send her to stud this season and we thought we’d give her a bit of a try out and just see what we had but she’s probably exceeded what we first thought so it now it gives us the option to race on with her.”

No plans have been set in stone for Clear Thinking yet, with any further value to her broodmare page a bonus, but Messara believes she can certainly make the grade.

“Run by run, we’ll probably give her one more run in the bush and if she comes through that well we may well go to a highway and eventually look for a little break with the intention of bringing her back, and if she keeps improving hopefully targeting some better races in the later part of the Spring.”