A champion race mare, Tuesday Joy delivered for John Singleton on the track

Tuesday Joy was bred by John Singleton in 2003 from his Strawberry Hill Stud. By the Irish sire Carnegie, she was a daughter of Joie Denise (Danehill), herself a daughter of Denise’s Joy. Tuesday Joy was lightly raced over her career with 24 race starts spaced over spells during equine influenza and a bleeding attack. However, she became an immensely valuable mare.

So successful has this family been that it’s easy to lose track of the stakes winners, broodmares and champion racehorses that have emerged from it, but in her simplest form, Tuesday Joy was a half-sister to Sunday Joy (Sunday Silence), in turn, the dam of More Joyous (More Than Ready). She was sent into the care of Gai Waterhouse in early 2006. On debut, she was fifth in a Rosehill maiden, and then she ran second next time out to fellow Strawberry Hill-bred Universal Queen in the Gr.2 Sweet Embrace Stakes Thereafter, Tuesday Joy raced through a total of 24 lifetime starts for $3.25 million in prizemoney, in days well-before the big Sydney purses. She won the Gr.2 Wakeful Stakes in 2006 and was second to Miss Finland in the Gr.1 VRC Oaks. Tuesday Joy was victorious in the Gr.1 Coolmore Classic in 2007, along with the Gr.1 Ranvet Stakes and Gr.1 $2,200,000 The BMW (2400m), putting away the brilliant New Zealand mare Princess Coup (Encosta De Lago) for a second successive time. Jockey Darren Beadman was equally as impressive in the saddle.

After jumping from a wide gate in the BMW, Beadman snagged the mare behind the leaders and remarkably ended up on the fence only a few hundred metres after the gates opened. Approaching the turn Beadman snuck along the fence before angling off into the straight and from there she sprinted too quickly for Princess Coup and Sirmione to score a superb victory. The official margins were one and a half lengths by a half length. The overall time was 2.35.81 for the 2400m with the last 600m run in 35.97. Owner John Singleton promised to shout the bar at 19 pubs from Newcastle to Wyong if either Tuesday Joy or Sugarbabe collected one of the big cheques on Slipper Day and luckily for drinkers of Singleton’s Bluetongue beer, Tuesday Joy didn’t disappoint. Singleton first shouted the public bar at Rosehill Racecourse in 2000 after his horse, Belle De Jour, won the Golden Slipper. All the bars in Newcastle, Gosford and Wyong had a Bluetongue happy hour at 5.

Tuesday Joy won the Gr.2 Apollo Stakes and Gr.1 Chipping Norton Stakes in 2009, and that year she travelled to the Gulf to contest the Gr.1 Dubai Duty Free at Nad Al Sheba. She was unplaced, and it proved her final start before retirement to Strawberry Hill in 2009.

For some weeks trainer Gai Waterhouse had been concerned that the mare has not shown enthusiasm in her work and trials. The mare was being set for a Melbourne Cup campaign by Waterhouse, and with listless trials the trainer even sent her over jumps to try and rekindle her appetite for racing. Singleton commented that the trip to Dubai for the World Cup and the Group 1 Dubai Duty Free over 1777m with Tuesday Joy might have been a ‘mistake by the owner’.

Tuesday Joy was Group-placed on nine occasions, and those races included Fiumicino’s AJC Derby and Rena’s Lady’s AJC Oaks. She ran into Casino Prince, Racing To Win, Weekend Hussler and Littorio, and there was nothing protected about her career despite only 24 raceday starts. She tackled all comers in all conditions in Sydney, Melbourne and Dubai. At stud, Tuesday Joy produced foals by More Than Ready, Street Cry and Snitzel. The best of her progeny was Girl Tuesday (Street Cry), who won six races and was multiple times stakes-and Group placed.

RACE RECORD - 24: 7-6-3

EARNINGS - $3,240,450

G1 Coolmore Classic

G1 The BMW

G1 Queen Elizabeth Stakes

G1 Chipping Norton Stakes