FRED KERSLEY ON A NORTHERLY STAKES MISSION

By Graham Potter | Thursday, December 4, 2025

The Northerly Stakes takes pride of place at Ascot on Saturday in a race which marks the final Group 1 of the 2025 Pinnacles Summer Racing Carnival.

The race became known as the Northerly Stakes in 2022, honouring Western Australia’s star performer of his time, the mighty Northerly who won, amongst others, two Cox Plates, beating Sunline 2001 and beating Defier in 2002.

That second Cox Plate win was part of a five-race winning sequence which included wins in the Craiglee, the Underwood, the Turnbull and then that magnificent Caulfield Cup / Cox Plate double.

All of that was achieved under the astute management of trainer Fred Kersley.

So, it would be something of a match made in heaven if the stars were to align and Fred Kersley Jnr were to ride the winner of the Northerly Stakes on Saturday, the race named after his grandfather’s champion.

The wording might line up differently, but still, if that was to be the outcomes. once again, the Kersley name and that of Northerly would then be side by side in the record books, twenty-one years after Northerly retired.

On Saturday Kersley will ride Osipenko for trainer Chris Waller.

The five-time winner finished 3.17 lengths behind Watch Me Rock in the Group 1 Railways Stakes two weeks ago.

He had to chase from a wide barrier draw that day (barrier fourteen). Tim Clark pushed him forward early, but he was held there wide all the way to the home turn where he was pushed even wider on straightening.

Osipenko kept coming in the first half of the straight, but his early effort did start to tell over the last 150m, where he failed to find anything extra to offer and he was beaten out of the placings.

Prior to that run, Osipenko had winning form, having won the $750 000 Little Dance at Randwick in his penultimate start.

But the Kersley family’s desired result is not going to be easy to secure.

Once again, the ‘Barrier Gods’ have not been kind to Osipenko.

On Saturday he will jump from the widest gate in a full field of sixteen runners, so, the chances are Fred Kersley will have to produce a peach of a ride if he is to make that ‘dream’ result come true, but that does not remove the fact that the opportunity is there.