Team Munce eye Tatt’s Tiara triumph

Buoyed by another fruitful weekend, Chris and Corey Munce are aiming to put the icing on their most successful season to date when mares Gerringong (Blue Point) and Poster Girl (Alabama Express) contest the Tattersall’s Tiara (Gr 1, 1400m) at Eagle Farm this Saturday.

The stable’s second Ipswich Cup (Listed, 2150m) triumph was the highlight of a weekend which produced four victories and two minor placings from their eight runners, and the father and son training team are determined to maintain that momentum into the final Group 1 raceday of the 2025-26 season.

Poster Girl, a model of consistency with six wins and five placings from her 20 starts, has been under the care of Team Munce since the start of her career but Gerringong only arrived in the yard in late autumn, having previously campaigned for Gai Waterhouse and Adrian Bott. However, the four-year-old mare made an instant impression on her stable debut with an eye-catching runner-up finish in the Dane Ripper Stakes (Gr 2, 1300m) ten days ago.

Gerringong made light of the unsuitably heavy ground that day but she should be better suited by a firmer surface on Saturday, and the same applies to stablemate Poster Girl who ran a gallant fourth in the Dane Ripper behind She’s Got Pizzazz (Zoustar).

Their prospects of securing a first stakes success were enhanced when Peter Moody and Kath Coleman broke the news on Monday morning that She’s Got Pizzazz, who had previously held Tatt’s Tiara favouritism, would instead be heading for a winter spell.

That surprise omission left Gerringong at the pointy end of the early betting markets alongside Michael Freedman’s multiple stakes winner Manaal (Tassort) and the Grahame Begg-trained mare Splash Back (Le Havre).

Coincidentally, during his celebrated riding career Munce combined with Begg to win the Tatt’s Tiara (formerly known as the Winter Stakes) in 2000 with Bonanova (Star Way), who became the first and so far only mare to successfully defend her title having claimed the race the previous year under Jimmy Cassidy.   

Munce Senior cemented his love affair with the Tatt’s Tiara when, in 2023, he created history as the first person to win the weight-for-age contest for fillies and mares as both a trainer and jockey. In joyous scenes, Palaisipan (So You Think) signed off her racing career by delivering a first Group 1 for both Munce (as trainer) and jockey Kyle-Wilson Taylor, before embarking on her career as a broodmare. She was covered by The Autumn Sun last season and her first foal, a filly by Zoustar, will head to the yearling sales in 2027.   

The Munce name is therefore intrinsically linked with the Tatt’s Tiara, and the Eagle Farm conditioner would dearly love to write another chapter by winning the race for the first time in partnership with his son Corey, who joined the training ticket in the spring of 2024.   

“This race has obviously been very good to me in the past and we think we have two live chances this year in Gerringong and Poster Girl,” he told ANZ News.

“Both mares came through their runs in the Dane Ripper in good order, neither of them appreciated the heavy track that day but they still ran very well in the circumstances. Hopefully the rain stays away this week, because they’re both much better on top of the ground.  

“They’ve both got a very good turn of foot so if they get a dry track, it definitely advantages them. Barriers will obviously play a big part as they always do in these Group 1 races with big fields, but we’ve booked two very good jockeys in Nash Rawiller [Gerringong] and Martin Harley [Poster Girl] so I’m sure they’ll be able to work it out on the day.”

Gerringong was bred by Strawberry Hill Stud – which in late 2023 was acquired by Coolmore – and as such she sports the distinctive blue and white colours of advertising and media entrepreneur John Singleton. The mare’s high-profile ownership group also includes rugby league legends Mick Cronin, Bob O’Reilly and Peter Wynn, who in the 1970s and ‘80s won eight premierships between them for the Parramatta Eels.  

Munce rode several horses for the man affectionately known as ‘Singo’ during his time in the saddle, but since transitioning to the training ranks, Gerringong marks the beginning of what he hopes will become a prosperous partnership in the future.

“I think Singo was originally planning to sell her through the broodmare sale, but she’s still only a young mare with potentially a lot of racing ahead of her so he obviously had a change of heart,” Munce told ANZ News.

“She’s been stakes placed in the past but she still has the opportunity to win some good races, and of course the main aim is to get a Group 1 win on her CV. She’s been a pretty straightforward mare to train, and she has settled in very well at our stables. She’s very sound and healthy and she enjoys her work, but we were probably a little bit behind the eight-ball early on because the winter carnival was already underway when we got her.

“So we were up against it to get her ready in time, but she’s such a tough mare that she’s handled the work that we’ve had to put into her quite comfortably. This race has always been her grand final this prep, so we’ll probably look to give her a freshen-up after Saturday and then think about what races we might target in Sydney or Melbourne in the spring.”

After the Tatt’s Tiara brings the curtain down on the Group 1 action for the season, attention in Queensland turns to the Caloundra Cup (Listed, 2400m) which takes place at the Sunshine Coast on Saturday week.

Half Yours (St Jean) famously used that race as a winter springboard to sealing the coveted Cups double last spring, and while Munce’s last-start Ipswich Cup winner Kaluakoi (Zoustar) is perhaps not quite in the same class as Team McEvoy’s more celebrated stayer, connections are hopeful he could make an impact on Melbourne Cup Day – albeit at Randwick rather than Flemington.      

“We’re keen to qualify him for the Big Dance, we’re just working out the best way to try to get him into the race but his next run will most likely be in either the Caloundra Cup or the Grafton Cup,” Munce told ANZ News.

“He’s a lovely, big-striding horse, he covers the ground really well, he’s got a big set of lungs on him and a high cruising speed, so it’s a pretty good combination. He makes his own luck out in front, and when they’re in good form those sorts of horses are hard to run down, so I think he’ll be very competitive in whatever race we take him to next.”