Festive finale for top trainers
THE nation’s two dominant big-race trainers, Chris Waller and Darren Weir, can clean up again on the final day of the Golden Slipper Festival at Rosehill Gardens today.
Waller and Weir won five of the nine races on Golden Slipper Day last Saturday, including three Group 1 wins.
Winx (George Ryder Stakes) and D’Argento (Rosehill Guineas) won majors for Waller, while Gailo Chop (Ranvet Stakes) gave Weir his first Group 1 winner in Sydney as the trainer celebrated a stable treble.
The champion trainers are represented by the favourites in the two Group 1 races today — Waller’s Unforgotten is the $4.40 favourite for the $500,000 Vinery Stud Stakes (2000m) and Gailo Chop is the $2.30 favourite for the $1.5 million Kia Tancred Stakes (2400m).
Waller and Weir have both prepared seven Group 1 winners so far this season and are co-leaders in the national Group 1 trainers premiership.
This is a title Waller has won the past five seasons in succession, including 14 Group 1 wins in 2014-15 before training 15 major winners in 2015-16.
But Weir, who has been second to Waller in the Group 1 premiership the past two years, has been steadily closing the gap.
Weir trained six Group 1 winners in 2015-16, then a personal best eight majors last season to finish just one bigrace win behind his rival.
Waller is relying primarily on Unforgotten to claim another Group 1 as his lone Tancred Stakes starter, Who Shot Thebarman, is at $23 for that race.
Unforgotten, who is partowned by Peter Tighe of Winx fame, underlined her potential with a stunning effort to win the Phar Lap Stakes last start.
“She beat a good field and came from last to win,’’ Waller said on his stable trackwork video update this week.
“The 2000m won’t be a problem and with her style of racing, [though] she has drawn awkward, she can switch off and get into a nice rhythm then power home.
“We will see how she measures up to the better fillies because this is one of the better editions of this race.’’
Who Shot Thebarman is contesting his fourth successive Tancred Stakes, having finishing fourth in 2015 and last year, plus a close second to stablemate Preferment two years ago.
“He is a good, tough old stayer going towards another Sydney Cup,’’ Waller said.
Weir’s Gailo Chop and 2016 Melbourne Cup hero Almandin loom as the ones to beat in the Tancred Stakes.
Gailo Chop romped away with the Ranvet Stakes last week by three lengths and has convinced Weir he has retained that form going into today’s race.
“He’s come through the run really good and I see no reason why number one, he shouldn’t run and number two, why he can’t win again,” said Weir’s travelling stable foreman Jarrod McLean.
“He’s a big strong horse and obviously he’s in the zone. I don’t think the back-up will be an excuse.
“The way he’s racing I don’t think another 400m is going to worry him.’’