EXOTIQUE MISS - CAN HER CLASS CARRY HER TO VICTORY?

By Graham Potter | Friday, September 26, 2025

Trainer Michael Nolan will be looking to add a fourth Weetwood winner to his honour roll on Saturday when he sends out the smart mare Exotique Miss to contest Toowoomba’s signature race.

Exotique Miss comes into the race off a three-month break since producing a valiant effort in the Group 1 Tatts Tiara at Eagle Farm back on June 25, a top tier race in which she finished fourth, less than two lengths behind the winner, Tashi.

While both Tashi and the third placegetter (Olentia) there have not raced since then, the form of the Tatts Tiara runner-up Abounding has franked that form in no uncertain terms with the Robert Heathcote trained runner going on to finish third in both the Group 3 Cockram at Caulfield (in which she was unlucky not to finish closer) and the Group 2 Let’s Elope at Flemington in the last month.

So, Exotique Miss’s run in the Tatts Tiara, albeit in a race restricted to fillies and mares, was a really bold effort in her first taste of elite level action, but, as Nolan pointed out in a very precise and even assessment of the pros and cons, from his perspective, of Exotique Miss’s chances on the big day, that Tatts Tiara result has come at a cost.

“We gave Exotique Miss a short break after the Tatts. After she ran well in the Tatts, the Weetwood was always on the agenda,” said Nolan.

“She had about a month out and she has been back in work now for a period of time leading up to this. We probably weren’t banking on getting 57kg. I think that is an excessive weight for a mare … we got penalised six rating points for just running fourth in the Group 1.

“That put us up to a ninety-nine rating. Once I saw that I knew we were going to get weight in the Weetwood, but, as I said, for a mare 57kg is a huge weight.

“She is a good mare fresh (Exotique Miss has won three out of five starts first-up). Some of those previous first-up wins have been in lower grade races, which is different to going into a Weetwood first-up against some very good horses and having to give three or four kilos to the bulk of the field. It’s difficult to do.

“If you look through the field it is a very, very powerful Weetwood lineup.

“Having said that, she is a class runner,” continued Nolan. “She is a good mare fresh. I’ve got Cejay (Graham) on her, who is riding at her peak … I would say. Rachel King (who rode Exotique Miss in all of her three starts over the Winter Carnival) was never an option. She rode the mare so well for us and I’m sure Cejay can do as equally a good a job on Saturday.

“A couple of the better chances are drawn out a bit deep … and it’s a real tricky start the 1200m here, because you don’t have long and you are climbing a hill. If you are working up the hill it can takes its toll. You’ll be wanting to save yourself for the last 200m rather than doing too much work during the run.

“We’ve got a half decent ally if the emergencies don’t get a run and we are probably going to get a nice run for a long time … and we’ve got a home track advantage.

“A home track advantage … well, it is what it is … the horses have to travel here to you. You don’t have to travel to them.

“The mare is fit and well. She had a gallop on the course proper on Tuesday morning. We’ve done the same thing with her at the start of each of her preps … two jump-outs or two trials, a couple of strong gallops … she’s done the same routine she did last prep leading up to Eagle Farm where she won first-up, so she has done everything the same … the difference being we are in the deep end of the pool now.”

Nolan already has a special place in the race’s history on three counts.

In 2012 and 2013, the Nolan trained Miss Imagica became the first horse to complete back-to-back wins in the Weetwood in the modern era. The fact that you have to go back thirty-eight years before that to find the last horse to achieve that feat … to Combo’s success in 1974 and 1975 … puts Miss Imagica’s Weetwood double in perspective.

In the second of Miss Imagica’s wins, Skye Bogenhuber became the first female rider to land Toowoomba’s famous feature race which dates back to 1895. It would take another eleven years before Angela Jones became the second female rider to salute in the race.

Then, in 2021 when Jumbo Prince gave Nolan his third Weetwood win, it also produced an historic outcome as Jumbo Prince shared the honours with Col ‘N’ Lil to put the first Weetwood dead-heat in the record books. To date, it remains the only dead-heat in the race’s history.

And, with Exotique Miss certainly having winning credentials here, another significant fourth notch could go onto the Nolan’s belt.

Should the Under The Louvre five-year-old win, the result would see Nolan join fellow Toowoomba stalwart Kevin Kemp and Bill Neilsen on four Weetwood winners, the most achieved by any trainer in the history of the race.

Kemp, meanwhile, will be out to stretch his winning Weetwood total to five. He saddles Russian Alliance in the Weetwood with the stable having previously been successful in the race with Startell in 2001, Tellem in 2005 & 2007 and Typhoon Red in 2015.

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