Winterbottom Stakes: The Race That Made Global Stars

Kristen Manning

Editor

Last updated: Thu 27 Nov 2025 03:37

Kristen Manning 27 Nov 2025

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Winterbottom Stakes has seen champions like Miss Andretti and Takeover Target excel globally
Ortensia and Buffering also left a legacy with international victories
These horses exemplify the race's prestige and international appeal

Miss Andretti, ridden by Craig Newitt, winning the King’s Stand Stakes on Day 1 of Royal Ascot, June 19, 2007. (Getty)

As Western Australia's premier sprinting event, the $1.5 million Group 1 Winterbottom Stakes boasts an impressive honour roll, and amongst its many high-class winners are horses who have proven their worth not only beyond Perth, but beyond Australia.

2005: Miss Andretti – From Perth Star to World-Beater
2008: Takeover Target – The People’s Horse Takes Perth
2009 & 2011: Ortensia – The Underrated International Jet-Setter
2013 & 2015: Buffering – The Iron Horse of Queensland

We recall the deeds of four Winterbottom winners who took their Group 1 form off our shores...

2005: Miss Andretti – From Perth Star to World-Beater

Trainer Brian Mueller cheered home the classy mare La Trice to two victories in this race, and it was his son David in the winner’s circle over three decades later with Miss Andretti recording the first of her 11 Group victories.

Favourite though still backable having won a Listed race at her previous outing, the mare named after Formula 1 driver Mario Andretti was having her tenth start when contesting the Winterbottom, and it was her eighth win.

She would race three more times in Perth, adding the Group 3 Prince Of Wales Stakes to her record before making her way to Melbourne and the stables of Lee Freedman.

Rising through the grades from Listed level to Group 1 successes in the Manikato Stakes, Lightning Stakes, Australia Stakes and Newmarket Handicap, she hopped on a plane to the UK in 2007 where she followed in the hoofprints of Takeover Target, outdashing her rivals in the King’s Stand Stakes at Royal Ascot.

Winning the 1000m contest in record time, Miss Andretti had other Australians behind her with Magnus third, Takeover Target fourth and Bentley Biscuit unplaced.

"That is why we brought Miss Andretti over – we wanted the world to see how good she is," Freedman told reporters, with jockey Craig Newitt adding that it was "a privilege to ride her."

Miss Andretti was out of the placings as favourite in the Golden Jubilee Stakes before returning home and winning two more races including her fifth Group 1, the Age Classic (now Champions Sprint).

2008: Takeover Target – The People’s Horse Takes Perth

Whilst Miss Andretti was in the early stages of her career when winning the Winterbottom as a four-year-old, the fairytale story that is Takeover Target was nine when he made his first trip to Perth — and a successful one it was.

He was quite the traveller by that time, the Winterbottom his first run since a journey that saw him win the Singapore International Sprint (defeating Magnus) at Kranji before a second to Equiano in the King’s Stand and a fourth behind Kingsgate Native in the Golden Jubilee.

That was his third of four northern hemisphere adventures. Takeover Target in 2007 finished fourth behind Miss Andretti in the King’s Stand and second to Soldier’s Tale in the Golden Jubilee.

He had also contested those two races (first and third) in 2006 (also a close-up seventh in the July Cup), and after his Perth campaign he was unplaced in Singapore in a race memorably quinellaed by Sacred Kingdom and Rocket Man before a July Cup seventh.

All races to look back on with a smile, but there is no doubt that the Winterbottom was one of his most exciting wins as he engaged in an epic battle with Apache Cat.

"A heart-stopping, head-bobbing photo-finish" is how the finish of the race was described; silence ensuing as the judge examined the photo before a roar erupted with the result (though it would’ve been just as big for his equally popular rival).

The trainers of both horses were proud of their charges, Joe Janiak saying that the race was "probably one of the toughest races Australia has had for a long, long time" whilst Greg Eurell said that "it was a sensational race."

The Winterbottom was still a Group 2 that year and it was one of Takeover Target’s 16 victories in stakes company.

2009 & 2011: Ortensia – The Underrated International Jet-Setter

The winner of the penultimate Group 2 Winterbottom and the first Group 1, Ortensia probably doesn't attract the accolades she deserves as the winner of 13 races, with her ten stakes victories coming on ten different tracks.

It was under the care of her first trainer Tony Noonan that she first headed to Perth in 2009, her winning time of 1:08.56 a new record; a good effort for a horse back to 1200m having taken her place in the Railway Stakes over a mile at her previous outing.

It was a third Group win for Ortensia who, at her next start the following April, was first across the line in the Group 1 Galaxy only to be stripped of victory by a controversial positive swab.

No penalty was issued to Noonan, with food contamination considered a possible cause, and Ortensia was out to make up for the Group 1 that got away.

Finishing on the heels of the placegetters when fifth in the Hong Kong International Sprint won by J J The Jet Plane, Ortensia changed stables the following year, and it was for Paul Messara that she returned to Perth in 2011.

Sent out favourite in the Winterbottom having recorded an easy Listed win down the Flemington straight on Oaks Day, Ortensia got her deserved Group 1 with regular rider Craig Williams noting that "she's always been a Group One mare in our eyes."

"There is only one girl I’ve got a better relationship with, that's my wife," he joked.

After Perth, Ortensia was off travelling – winning the Group 1 Al Quoz Sprint in Dubai before a trip to the UK.

Unplaced in the King’s Stand and the July Cup, she blossomed Asfoora-style as she remained in England, winning the Group 2 King George Stakes at Goodwood and the Group 1 Nunthorpe Stakes at York.

The latter was her final win, and she bowed out of racing when unplaced in a Scone race named in her honour in May 2013. Sadly, she died young in 2016.

2013 & 2015: Buffering – The Iron Horse of Queensland

Another globe-trotting two-time Winterbottom winner, this popular Queenslander was in flying form in the summer of 2013.

It had taken him a while (17 attempts in fact) to win his first elite-level race (defeating the Hong Kong galloper Lucky Nine in the Manikato Stakes), but he then went bang-bang – proving too good for Ka Ying Rising’s sire Shamexpress in the VRC Sprint Classic before taking out the Perth feature as favourite.

"An extraordinary little animal" was how trainer Robert Heathcote described Buffering that day, whilst jockey Damian Browne said that he was "a wee champion."

Continuing to race well through his next campaign, the gelding recorded his next big win in the Group 1 Moir Stakes prior to his first trip overseas – running sixth in the Hong Kong International Sprint won by Aerovelocity.

He won his second Moir after that, earning another trip to Perth where he again started favourite in the Winterbottom, with Heathcote telling the press after that win that "I got a call the other day from Dubai and I'm now keen to go there in March."

And it was there he went, via a win as odds-on favourite in the Magic Millions QTIS at the Gold Coast.

Racing fans will recall sitting up in the early hours to watch Buffering record a popular win in the Al Quoz Sprint.

"He's not necessarily the fastest horse in the world but gee he’s tough and he showed that tonight," Heathcote told reporters, adding that "I'm just so damn proud to be here representing Australia."

"This old horse has been such a champion for us," Damian Browne said. "To come over here and get the money is just so great. We will soak up the moment; we are just so proud of him."

A $22,000 yearling, Buffering was retired a few starts later as the winner of over $7.3 million.