Hope for run to Remember

BALLARAT trainer Dan O’Sullivan is hoping the long straight at Sandown Hillside will provide his three-year-old filly Affair To Remember with what she wants in tomorrow’s Group 2 Sandown Guineas (1600m).

“I’d love to see her go to the races and she can get her chance to show her real ability, which is on the better side of above average. Hopefully with the long run in at Sandown and with a small field we can see that,” O’Sullivan said.

The daughter of Toronado is a $3.20 favourite with TAB fixed odds despite having won only one of her four starts, which was first-up at Geelong but she has had little luck at her last two runs.

Two starts ago, she finished seventh at Caulfield in the Jim Moloney Stakes, but was held up for a run until the closing stages before rocketing home.

Then last start at Flemington on Oaks Day, she was again held up for a run before flying home to finish third behind Nudge.

O’Sullivan said Affair To Remember’s jockey, John Allen, was a victim of circumstances on that occasion as when he came out in the straight to make a run she was bumped by another horse.

“She’s a filly only having her fourth start and she bumped into another horse and ricocheted back in. Her inexperience had a lot to do with her not holding her spot,” he said.

“It’s been frustrating. It would have been nice to win one on Oaks Day as you really want to train a winner during Cup Week when everybody is watching.”

Affair To Remember is raced by prominent South Australian breeder and owner David Peacock, for whom O’Sullivan has trained successfully for more than 20 years, having success with horses such as So Gorgeous and Truly Discreet for him.

O’Sullivan was setting Affair To Remember for the Group 1 Thousand Guineas but he was forced to scratch her after she was found to have had filling in a leg before the race.

“The X-rays and scans said it was nothing serious but I had to wait for it to come right. At this time of the year there’s too many nice races and I was confident it would settle down and it did so we’ve pushed on with her,” he said.

After tomorrow, O’Sullivan said he would spell the filly and bring her back for Adelaide carnival.

He said he also trained Affair To Remember’s halfsister Bahamas for the same owners and she finished third in the Australasian Oaks and he would set her for that race next year.