Clear Thinking wins The Kosciuszko
Brilliant winner of The Kosciuszko, Clear Thinking joins Know Thyself as the second million-dollar earner for the Messara & Gavranich stable. (PHOTO: Darren Tindale)
Arrowfield’s home stable landed its second country feature of 2025 when the blazingly fast 6YO mare Clear Thinking and a super-cool Tyler Schiller sped through a narrow gap to win the $2 million The Kosciuszko over 1200m on Everest Day at Royal Randwick.
Six months after Know Thyself’s heart-stopping victory in the $1 million Country Championships Final, Clear Thinking sparked another round of jubilant celebration led by trainers Paul Messara & Leah Gavranich, owners Arrowfield & Hermitage Thoroughbreds and slot-holder Graeme Green, chairman of the Clarence River Jockey Club at Grafton.
Paul & Leah’s decision to cut short her Autumn campaign after a TAB Highway win and a Group 3 placing, and prepare her thoroughly for a season debut in The Kosciuszko paid off with a consummate performance by horse and rider.
Starting as the $3.70 favourite and jumping from gate 13, Clear Thinking settled comfortably near the rear as So Magnificent and Compelling Truth set a torrid pace up front. The mare then reeled off four straight sub-11 second splits to hit the firing line at the 200-metre mark, and kept going strongly to score by almost a length from Gallant Star & Chidiac, with a final winning time of 1:08.48.
CLEAR THINKING 🖤💛
The Kosciuszko goes to Scone! Clear Thinking with a brilliant win from the back aided by a masterful Tyler Schiller ride 👏@Paulmessara @LGavranich @ArrowfieldStud pic.twitter.com/z06vXJ17Gs
— 7HorseRacing 🐎 (@7horseracing) October 18, 2025
Tyler Schiller, marking his third Kosciuszko success in 4 years, directed all praise to Clear Thinking & the stable, saying, “Such a lovely progressive mare. The Messara team and Leah have done a great job there, so I can’t take too much credit.
“Had a great run in transit from the bad draw and she dashed when she needed to. She was probably more brave than me, I pointed her in the right direction and the speed was really genuine which helped.
“I tracked up to the corner and just ran into a bit of dead ends, but to her credit she’s got a great turn of foot so she didn’t need room down the outside…She has just dashed through and hit the front and put them away nicely.”
PHOTOS: Bronwen Healy & Darren Tindale
In various post-race interviews, Paul Messara expressed gratitude to his team, the mare and the jockey. “Fantastic day, delighted, a lot of people involved, my co-trainer Leah who rides this horse a lot, rides her most days, and Brett Marshall who rides her the rest of the time. She’s a great horse with plenty of upside, we’ll obviously be targeting bigger races in the future.
“Since she has been back in work, she has done everything right going into this race. We knew the pace would be really fast today so we made the decision to use blinkers so it would keep her focused. She’s an amazing mare.
“He summed it up beautifully, the jockey, I left it in his hands…he made all the right calls, so well done.”
The Country Championships/Kosciuszko double has been achieved once before, by the Terry Robinson-trained Art Cadeau in 2021, but this is the first time it has been won by the same stable with different horses.
Although she is British-bred by the European super-sire Dubawi, and was purchased in 2023 from the estate of her breeder, HM Queen Elizabeth II, Clear Thinking has a deep connection with Arrowfield, as a daughter of much-admired graduate Sweet Idea (by Snitzel) whose eight Australian wins included The Galaxy G1 & four other Group races, plus a Golden Slipper G1 third.
Clear Thinking has won five of her 7 starts for $1.1 million prizemoney, and The Kosciuszko is the 88th win by the Messara & Gavranich partnership, now in its third season, and maintaining a remarkable 28% winning strike rate.
All going well, Clear Thinking’s likely next start will be in the $500,000 Hot Danish S. G2 at Rosehill on 8 November.
