Trainer a man on a Mission

TRAINER Paul Perry is optimistic The Mission can make his mark on the final day of the Sydney autumn carnival for the second consecutive year at Royal Randwick today.

The Mission is among seven individual Group 1 winners in a top-class 13-horse field for the $600,000 Schweppes All Aged Stakes (1400m).

Price assessors rate The Mission as a $23 chance behind hot favourite Trapeze Artist ($2.25) to win the final Group 1 race in Sydney this season, but this is a position Perry’s sprinter has been in before. At this same race meeting last year, The Mission scored an upset win in the Group 1 Champagne Stakes.

The Mission hasn’t won a race since, in fact the colt has finished out of a place in eight subsequent starts, but Perry has a real belief in the colt’s ability to be competitive today.

The champion Newcastlebased trainer cited The Mis- sion’s closing effort when fifth to Trapeze Artist in the T.J. Smith Stakes on day one of The Championships as reason for his belief.

“I thought the colt ran a super race in the TJ,’’ Perry said. “He’s been really good since, he’s trained on well. This is a tough race, it is like a miniDoncaster, but he is there to run well.’’

The Mission was a fiercegoing colt early in his career, but Perry said the young sprinter had learned how to race.

“You couldn’t stop him with the blinkers on,’’ Perry said. “We have taken the blinkers off him now and that has certainly helped, but he has also matured, too.

“These days, we are allowing him to settle rather than going forward and he is relaxing well then running on at the end of his races.’’

Perry is also hoping for a second successive Champagne Stakes (1600m) when he saddles up Ragged Rascal in the Group 1 $500,000 juvenile race. Ragged Rascal is at $34 today and is coming off an eighth in the ATC Sires Produce Stakes where he was back and wide for most of the race.

“He didn’t have much go right for him in the Sires and he was beaten by less than three lengths,’’ Perry said.

“But his run before that when he was unplaced at Rosehill [eighth to Irukandji in the Baillieu Handicap] was very good. He was held up most of the straight and probably should have run a place.’’