English To Represent Gai In Sires' Produce
- Sunday, 29 March 2015 07:48
Gai Waterhouse will rely on Golden Slipper placegetter English in her bid to win the second leg of the two-year-old triple crown.
The Tulloch Lodge trainer confirmed English would be her sole runner in Saturday's Group One Sires' Produce Stakes (1400m) at Randwick with Thomas Huet to replace the suspended Blake Shinn on the filly.
English finished second to stablemate Vancouver in the Golden Slipper and with that colt to miss the Sires', English gets her chance in the spotlight on day one of The Championships.
Trainer Gai Waterhouse.
Waterhouse said the filly had come through the Slipper in top order.
"She's fantastic. Her work on Saturday morning was absolutely super," Waterhouse said.
The Randwick trainer will have three runners in the $3 million Doncaster Mile which she will be striving to win for a record-breaking eighth time.
She equalled her father, the late TJ Smith, on seven wins when More Joyous won three years ago.
Group One winning mares Cosmic Endeavour and Diamond Drille will be joined by French import Pornichet, the winner of Saturday's Neville Sellwood Stakes.
Huet has been booked for Diamond Drille with Tim Clark to partner Cosmic Endeavour and Kerrin McEvoy to ride Pornichet.
Diamond Drille and Pornichet have 51kg while Canterbury Stakes winner Cosmic Endeavour has 52kg.
Last year's Queen Of The Turf winner, Diamond Drille tuned up for the Doncaster with a close third in a tight finish to the Coolmore Classic won by Plucky Belle from First Seal.
Waterhouse has decided not to run Excess Knowledge in the Doncaster despite his qualifying win in Saturday's Prelude.
The trainer was critical of the compressed weights which she said meant the five-year-old English import, who would get in with 50kg, was too close to proven Group One winners.
"It (weight scale) doesn't give the rising stars like him any advantage," she said.
