James McDonald chases another Thousand Guineas

Not content with his record Melbourne Cup Carnival haul, James Mcdonald will be back in Melbourne for this Saturday’s Thousand Guineas meeting.

The champion jockey will ride pre-post favourite Aeliana in the $1.5 million Group 1 for three-year-old fillies.

McDonald won last year’s Thousand Guineas on Joliestar, who like Aeliana is trained by Chris Waller, and McDonald was taken by the way she disposed of her male rivals in the Group 3 Carbine Club Stakes (1600m) at Flemington on Derby Day.

“She’s been an improver, a bit of a sleeper, but her performance in the Carbine Club was great,” McDonald said.

“A lot of the fillies are coming through the 1400-metre race (The Vanity), but she’s had a run against the boys over a mile and demolished them, so she looks pretty well placed.

“Some of the fillies in that 1400-metre race might be a little bit suspect at the mile , the way they ran the other day and on what their breeding suggests, but she’s ticked that box so that’s not a worry.”

Aeliana’s Carbine Club Stakes success was the first of 11 wins for the Melbourne Cup Carnival for McDonald, who rode Group 1 doubles on Derby Day and Champions Day to take his career Group 1 tally to 104.

It was the third win from five starts and second success in a row for Aeliana after taking out the Group 3 Reginald Allen Quality at Randwick on October 19.

A daughter of Castelvecchio, Aeliana races under Denise Martin’s Star Thoroughbreds silks and is out of a half-sister to Invincibella, who won 12 races and more than $3 million for Martin and her owners.

The trip to Caulfield will be part of a hectic weekend for McDonald, who will leave Caulfield before the meeting has concluded to get to Tullamarine, where he will catch a flight to Hong Kong to partner Romantic Warrior in Sunday’s Group 2 Jockey Club Cup (2000m).