Karuta Queen will not contest the 2012 Magic Millions

Karuta Queen will not travel back to the Gold Coast in January to try and defend the Magic Millions title she earned in 2011.

Karuta Queen won the two year old race in devastating fashion 10 months ago putting nearly three lengths between herself and the second placed Combat Kitty.

Since then she’s continued on with her success with two stakes wins over the spring and a further two second placings, including behind Black Caviar in the Schillaci Stakes.

Her final run was a tough encounter down the Flemington straight where she was upstaged as an odds on favourite by the impressive African Pulse.

Trainer Neville Layt says he was happy to pull the pin on her campaign after that defeat and that overall it was a successful preparation.

“She’d never been down the straight before and I think that was a telling factor in her getting beat, but in saying that the winner might be a fair horse,” he said.

“She still performed well all the way through Melbourne and Sydney.”

He says while he would have loved to return to the Gold Coast for a crack at three year old success there simply wasn’t enough time to get the horse back to peak condition.

“She would have only been in the paddock for the end of this week and then she would have been back in and that wouldn’t have been fair to her,” he said.

“If we give her a good spell and bring her back mid December we can get her ready for the autumn.”

Karuta Queen has an impressive overall record of six wins from 11 starts and over $1.7M in prize money.