Shaune Ritchie getting Tuxedo ready for A$2m Five Diamonds in Sydney
Michael Guerin • November 5th, 2026 12:17 PM
Kiwi trainer Shaune Ritchie may have pulled off a masterstroke on one of the craziest days of the racing year.
Now he just has to actually win the A$2 million Five Diamonds in Sydney on Saturday with Tuxedo.
Ritchie and training partner Colm Murray have their stable star in the unusual race which, considering its prizemoney, feels like one of the forgotten gems of Cup week, or should that be “Cups Fortnight”.
Saturday is the day when two biggest Cup carnivals on either side of the Tasman collide, with Champions Day at Flemington actually the strongest day of Melbourne Cup week but on the same day as New Zealand Cup week in Christchurch starts with the Barneswood Farm NZ 1000 Guineas at Riccarton.
Ritchie will be at neither.
While Melbourne is undoubtedly the focus for Australasian punters this week, there was still huge money up for grabs in Sydney, including in the A$3m Big Dance at Randwick on Tuesday.
That carries through to Rosehill on Saturday where Tuxedo finds himself in the Five Diamonds, which is for 5-year-olds only, incredibly rare if not unique conditions for a race at that prizemoney level anywhere in the world.
With plenty of Australia’s best horses chasing Group One glory at Flemington on Saturday, the Five Diamonds has drawn a quality but hardly scary line-up and Tuxedo heads there with two recent Group One second places to Waitak at home under his belt.
“We had been eyeing it up for a while and hoped by the time we got here the strength of the field would work in our favour, which we think it has,” Ritchie said.
He said that “we all know” an A$2m race in Australia "isn’t going to be easy to win but we think the 1800m suits him perfectly, most of the elite horses in Australia aren’t here and we have a horse going into the race in good form”.
“So, we are happy and we give him a show and he gets in well under the weight conditions."
Incredibly for an A$2m race, the Five Diamonds is only rated a Group Three and Tuxedo has drawn barrier 1, which may not be perfect if he gets shuffled back on the inside but is still better than drawing wide around Rosehill.
So, can he win?
“He has travelled over well and is eating well and this race will give us a great line on whether he is good enough to come back here for the carnival in the autumn,” Ritchie said.
“We think barrier 1 helps because he can sometimes over-race when he races without cover so we think he has a great each-way chance.”
While Tuxedo may be the best New Zealand-trained chance of Cup week, even though he isn’t actually in Melbourne, at Flemington, New Zealand-owned mare Joliestar will be trying to turn the tables on Tempted in the Champions Sprint.
Tempted won the A$20m Everest at Randwick three weeks ago, just beating Ka Ying Rising with Joliestar a close third, and the two Sydney mares will start from alongside each other in Saturday’s straight 1200m Group One.
The Cambridge Stud-owned Joliestar has barrier 10 with Tempted directly to her inside at barrier 9, setting up an intriguing game of cat and mouse to see which one can get the other’s back for the all-important tow into the final 200m.
That is so often how the major straight 1200m races are won, following and waiting, and with the straight races at Flemington having seen jockeys aiming to get wide on the track all week, both Joliestar and Tempted appear to be drawn on the right side of the field.
Joliestar’s trainer Chris Waller had a wonderful Derby Day, then a Melbourne Cup day he’d rather forget with the forced scratching of Asterix from the Cup.
But he brings some of his biggest weaponry to Flemington on Saturday with not only Joliestar but Autumn Glow set to start a hot favourite from barrier 2 in the Champions Mile.
Waller will also have New Zealand-bred Aeliana in the 2000m Champion Stakes, which has a Cox Plate take two feel to it with Plate winner Cosmic Crusader backing up against Birdman and Sir Delius in the weight-for-age contest that also includes the Go Racing-owned and managed Omni Man.
Trackside's Big Saturday has racing at Te Rapa and Riccarton Park, plus racing from across the Tasman. Cup week begins, with the first day highlight being the Gr.1 1000 Guineas. The final day of the Melbourne Cup festival is Champions Day, with 3 x Gr.1 races. Tune into Trackside 1 or trackside.co.nz from 11:30am.
This article also appears on the NZ Herald. Click here to view it
