The Everest: Idol Horse Power Rankings (September 24)
The champion has landed and some of his rivals have had their say – a Group 1 winner surges, a Shorts shock arrives, and two names drop off with three and a half weeks to run ahead of a big weekend for one key contender.
The Everest: Idol Horse Power Rankings (September 24)
The champion has landed and some of his rivals have had their say – a Group 1 winner surges, a Shorts shock arrives, and two names drop off with three and a half weeks to run ahead of a big weekend for one key contender.
24 September, 2026Ka Ying Rising walked onto an Australian racetrack on Tuesday morning in front of about a dozen people, and nothing that happened at Randwick and Caulfield on the previous Saturday will have troubled him.
Saturday did shake up everything beneath him in our rankings though. One horse finally snared the Group 1 he has been chasing all year and climbed accordingly, The Shorts produced a winner and a placegetter nobody had on this board seven days ago, and two of last week’s twelve are now pointed at other races entirely.
Metro racing moves to Sunday in Melbourne for the G1 Manikato Stakes (1200m) at Caulfield, and three of the twelve below have been entered: Beiwacht, Jimmysstar and Oliveanotherday. They meet defending champion Charm Stone, resuming, plus Moir Stakes winner My Gladiola, Napoleonic, Giga Kick and Trent Edmonds’ mare Extragalactic, with James McDonald in town to ride her. Before that, Guest House gets to prove his credentials in the G1 Golden Rose on Saturday.
The field itself is also starting to fill. One of the horses below secured a slot this week to become the third confirmed starter, and the G2 Premiere Stakes on October 3 is shaping as the last meaningful audition for the rest.
Here’s how our experts rate the challengers chasing the champ.
1. Ka Ying Rising –
Age/Sex: 6YO Gelding
Trainer: David Hayes
Race Record: 24:22-2-0
Biggest Win: G1 The Everest (2025)
Unanimous, and now in the country. He completed a 16-hour trip from Sha Tin to Canterbury Park on Monday, lost five kilograms having deliberately left Hong Kong seven heavier, and pranced through two and a half laps on Tuesday in 26 minutes. He trials at Randwick on October 6 under Zac Purton and won’t race again before October 17.
David Hayes needed a few minutes to rate him “conservatively 10 per cent” better than the horse who handled Australia’s best sprinters last year. “I was just talking to my vet, and she said she really thinks he handled it better than he did last year. He’s a heavier horse, but that’s a big positive as far as I’m concerned.”
The thin opposition doesn’t trouble him either. “This year, I’ve been watching the sprinters very closely and I think there’s clearly some good ones,” Hayes said. “But they’ve probably got to improve a lot, and he’s got to lose a bit of form the way I’m looking at it. And I don’t think he has.”
2. Tempted –
Age/Sex: 4YO Mare
Trainer: Ciaron Maher
Race Record: 13:8-2-2
Biggest Win: G1 Surround Stakes (2026)
Unchanged and untested. The Premiere Stakes (1200m) on October 3 will be her only run between the G2 Concorde and The Everest, and nothing on Saturday threatened her standing as the best of the locals – if anything it left her further clear.
Adam Pengilly, on the Idol Horse News Desk Podcast: “Tempted, second to him last year, is probably still our number one seed.”
3. Joliestar ↑1
Age/Sex: 6YO Mare
Trainer: Chris Waller
Race Record: 23:10-5-4
Biggest Win: G1 TJ Smith Stakes (2026)
Beaten, but promoted. First-up from Royal Ascot, she was the only Everest hope to make ground in a Shorts that was run for the leaders, going down a neck to Mazu. Our experts took nothing negative from it: she did what she does, consistently, again.
“Sharp race and covered ground. Hit the line well,” James McDonald said.
The plan is last year’s: four weeks from The Shorts straight into The Everest in Waller’s own slot, which makes the race itself her second-up run.
4. Guest House ↓1
Age/Sex: 3YO Colt
Trainer: Mick Price & Michael Kent Jnr
Race Record: 5:3-1-1
Biggest Win: G1 Golden Slipper (2026)
Down one without running, purely because Joliestar put a run on the board. He answers back in Saturday’s G1 Golden Rose (1400m) at Rosehill, where he meets Run To The Rose winner Warwoven – fifth to him in the San Domenico – and where part-owner Coolmore’s slot is effectively on the line.
Pengilly expects him to get there: “Guest House will force his way into the conversation.”
“He couldn’t be any better,” the colt’s co-trainer Michael Kent Jnr said this week ahead of the Golden Rose. “We’ve got him right in the zone … I think if he runs to his best and gets a strong 1400m, which we’re very optimistic he will, he’s the one to beat.”
5. Angel Capital ↑3
Age/Sex: 5YO Horse
Trainer: Chris Waller
Race Record: 18:6-2-2
Biggest Win: G1 Sir Rupert Clarke Stakes (2026)
The weekend’s biggest mover, unanimously. A patient Ben Melham ride and a strong finish over the final 100m ran down defending winner Sepals by three-quarters of a length, delivering the Group 1 that had escaped him through placings in the Orr, the Newmarket and the William Reid. Waller had switched him out of the Manikato when the handicap fell his way.
“He’s been deserving of the Group 1 win for so many runs,” Darren Beadman said.
Yulong said before Saturday that he remained in the conversation for their slot. A Group 1 win is the strongest case anyone on this list made at the weekend, and our panel now expects him to fill it – without expecting him to beat the champion.
Yulong’s new racing manager Danny Rolston told The Thoroughbred Report: “The Everest is firmly in the discussion. We’re not locking him in right now, as we’ll see how he’s come through the run and it’ll certainly be one of the options on the table … he would be the obvious horse that would warrant putting it in from our own team.”
6. Ninja ↓1
Age/Sex: 4YO Gelding
Trainer: Michael Freedman
Race Record: 10:5-1-2
Biggest Win: G2 Hobartville Stakes (2026)
Ninth in The Shorts, first-up, in a race where nothing from behind could make ground. It changes nothing about whether he runs – the Fairway Thoroughbreds slot was the first of the challengers’ places confirmed, and he is now one of three – and plenty about what to expect when he does.
“Great run. Was gifted to the horses on speed. He ran well,” Tommy Berry said, and Pengilly noted on the podcast that he carved out decent sectionals.
Michael Freedman has floated the idea of another run before The Everest, two weeks out in the G2 Premiere Stakes (1200m) on October 3 at Rosehill, where Tempted and now Headwall are also headed.
7. Mazu NEW
Age/Sex: 8YO Gelding
Trainer: Joseph Pride
Race Record: 47:11-4-9
Biggest Win: G1 Doomben 10,000 (2022)
The Shorts winner, and a horse whose trainer is trying to talk him out of the race. He stopped two or three times on the way to the gates, lashed out at the clerks, then led from barrier one under Rachel King and was never caught. “They should never forget about him. He’s so honest,” King said.
Pride, though, wants no part of a fourth Everest after third in 2022, 11th in 2023 and ninth last year. “I want to go where I can win. He’s had a few goes in the Everest and it’s not really his race. On a day when it’s wet, he will probably be in the contest, but other than that, running a nice sixth or seventh doesn’t interest me a lot.” The call belongs to Triple Crown Syndications.
Our panel rates the son of Maurice more highly than his own trainer does – a Shorts winner who has placed in this race usually gets courted, whether or not he wants the call. A strong wet track record could be his wildcard if Sydney produces some wild weather, which is always a possibility.
8. Beiwacht ↓2
Age/Sex: 4YO Horse
Trainer: Chris Waller
Race Record: 14:4-3-1
Biggest Win: G1 Memsie Stakes (2026)
Down two without racing, as two horses beneath him won. The next start is now settled, and it answers the question hanging over him: he has been entered for Sunday’s Manikato, dropping back to 1200m for the first time since February with Nash Rawiller to ride.
That matters more than the two places. Waller has called 1400m his sweet spot and the Golden Eagle has always read as the more natural target, so a Manikato run is the closest thing to a declaration that Randwick on October 17 is live.
9. Headwall –
Age/Sex: 7YO Gelding
Trainer: Matthew Smith
Race Record: 20:7-6-4
Biggest Win: G2 Concorde Stakes (2025)
He is in. Headwall is the third sprinter confirmed for October 17, after a deal between Reg Young’s syndicate and the slot shared by Max Whitby, Neil Werrett, Col Madden and Steve McCann – the partnership that has finished second with Vega Magic in 2017 and Masked Crusader in 2021, third with Private Eye and fourth with Trekking.
“We were keen to get Headwall because we feel he’s going to be very competitive in The Everest,” Whitby said. “Obviously, Ka Ying Rising is going to be hard to beat but we are happy to be involved. Headwall’s two runs so far this spring have been very good, he’s going as well as ever.”
The form underneath it is better than fifth reads. Beaten a length by Mazu in The Shorts on a day the leaders never came back, he ran the fastest last 600m of the meeting in 32.70s, having resumed from a year out with an unlucky second to Tempted. Matt Smith wants one more run before the big one. “Because he had been off the scene for so long I’m thinking of running him in the Premiere Stakes next week as he needs the racing,” Smith told Racing and Sports. “He will be very fit and at his top for The Everest.”
10. Oliveanotherday –
Age/Sex: 4YO Gelding
Trainer: Tom Dabernig
Race Record: 9:6-1-0
Biggest Win: G3 The Heath (2026)
Sunday is the reckoning. He’s entered for the competitive Manikato with Harry Coffey to ride – his first run since the Bobbie Lewis failure ended a five-race streak – comes against defending champion Charm Stone, Moir winner My Gladiola, Beiwacht dropping back in trip and Napoleonic.
Tom Dabernig’s position before Flemington – the owner will reassess, the Manikato and the travel are doable – is now the entire case. Three weeks out, this is the last chance to turn slot-holder interest in an unbeaten horse back into interest in this one.
11. Jimmysstar –
Age/Sex: 7YO Gelding
Trainer: Ciaron Maher
Race Record: 29:11-5-4
Biggest Win: G2 Russell Balding Stakes (2025)
The run has arrived. He is entered for Sunday’s Manikato with Ethan Brown aboard, a first appearance since the Memsie ninth and the test his part-owner set before that run: come back like the old Jimmy and The Everest talk restarts, or take the A$5m King Charles III Stakes on the same Randwick card instead.
Three weeks out, there is no third option left. The Manikato decides which of the two races he turns up in.
12. King’s Secret NEW
Age/Sex: 5YO Gelding
Trainer: Joseph Pride
Race Record: 15: 6-3-3
Biggest Win: Listed Canterbury Sprint (2026)
Mazu’s stablemate, and right behind him twice now – the Hall Mark in April, then a nose from second in the Shorts, ahead of both Headwall and Ninja.
“Brilliant effort once again. Knocked off by the stablemate. He is so honest. He is improving,” Andrew Adkins said. “I love the way he is attacking the line. He has come back even better this preparation.” ∎
