Catkins Switch To Deliver Overdue G1 Win

Chris Waller's resolute faith in his best horses to win the races their talent deserves is being tested once more with popular racemare Catkins.

Catkins is adored because she is a grey racehorse with an uncompromising attitude that has delivered a bundle of important wins without claiming a Group One victory.

But she has an undeniable chance to correct that record when she runs as favourite in the $500,000 Canterbury Stakes at Randwick.

Yet it won't matter to one of her biggest fans if she can't do it on Saturday in a weight-for-age race that includes Sacred Falls and Royal Descent, two stablemates who are already on Waller's Group One honour roll.

From experience, Waller knows there should be more Group One opportunities for Catkins beyond the Canterbury Stakes.

That's because he has likened her pursuit of an elite win to that of Red Tracer, a high-class mare which retired last season with 15 wins and almost $2.4 million in earnings.

Red Tracer raced 16 times at Group One level but it wasn't until the back-end of her career that she was able to breakthrough.

"Catkins has won almost half of her starts, she tries her guts out every time for you," Waller said.

"She is a Group One winner in my eyes, as was Red Tracer at a similar stage and she ended up winning a couple."

Catkins has Group One placings in two Myer Classics and a Coolmore Classic to go with her 14 wins and Waller concedes the Canterbury Stakes didn't figure in his first autumn plans for the five-year-old.

"It's an afterthought race but it's the right race," he said.

Sacred Falls and Royal Descent will start their autumn campaigns on a timetable to have them peaking for the Doncaster Mile.

"I would expect him to be hitting the line strongly and he's on track for a Doncaster," Waller said of Sacred Falls.

"As for Royal Descent, she is very good and on my scale she is right up there with some of the very best horses I've trained."