MCDONALD POISED TO STRIKE AT JOHNSTON'S RECORD

By Graham Potter | Friday, June 27, 2025

Malcolm Johnston will be a keen observer when James McDonald partners the Chris Waller trained Firestorm in the Group 1 Tatts Tiara at Eagle Farm on Saturday in a race which will decided whether Johnston continues to hold on to the record for most Group 1 winning rides in a season in his own right, or whether he is joined on that lofty podium by McDonald.

McDonald is currently one shy of equalling Johnson’s mark of sixteen Group 1 winners for the season … a record which has stood for forty-five years … since the 1979/80 season.

Saturday will be the last throw of the dice for McDonald to ramp up to sixteen winners as the Tatts Tiara is the last Group 1 of the season.

Firestorm is the current ruling race favourite, but it is certainly no ‘gimme’ for the mare who has already picked up a possible complication after ending up with barrier nineteen for the big race.

McDonald has already played a huge part in helping set another record, that of trainer Chris Waller who set a new total of nineteen Group 1 wins for the season when the McDonald partnered Joliestar snared the Group 1 Kingsford Smith in a thrilling last stride victory.

Waller’s was breaking his own record there, having held the previous record of eighteen Group 1 wins, achieved in the 2018/19 season.

Waller will be looking to push that envelope even further at Eagle Farm on Saturday where he will saddle three runners in the Tatts Tiara … Firestorm, Konasana and Olentia.

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