England’s Rose in a different league
UNTIL ENGLAND’S ROSE’s Achilles heel is exposed, possibly at a distance of ground, it makes no sense even thinking about opposing her against her peers, unless facing an imported two-yearold of calibre, certainly not her stablemate, EAGLE ONE.
Clocking 1:05.4 for five and a half furlongs at exercise, two Sundays ago, followed by an easy 1:06.3 last Saturday, puts her in a different league than WOW WOW, who worked well on Sunday, 1:06.2, but has a lot of running to do to beat the filly, who came out of the one hole to easily put him away by four lengths on their debut.
Sex allowance makes ENGLAND’S ROSE five pounds lighter than WOW WOW in Saturday’s Bearings and Accessories Trophy, a similar weight difference when they met at three furlongs straight, late June.
Should ENGLAND’S ROSE develop into a Triple Crown winner next season, emulating and joining her big sister, SHE’S A MANEATER, as well as imported STRANGER DANGER, in trainer Wayne DaCosta’s barn, Anthony Nunes, all set to fit the 2019 crown, after being runner-up too many times to remember, will be the surest one-term champion ever in the history of local racing.
FIRMLY ON COURSE
Nunes, who leads DaCosta by $16.7m in the standings, should see that sum docked by $1.63m after ENGLAND’S ROSE’s victory but stand to immediately earn a possible $800,000 from SUPREME SOUL, FAYROUZ and BRUCE WAYNE in the Mark My Word Trophy, keeping the leading trainer firmly on course to dethrone his rival, who has won 13 consecutive crowns from 18 titles.
SUPERLUMINAL winning the Owen Silvera Memorial with 121lb, has pushed him to the top of the scale in the Mark My word, carrying 126, facing Triple Crown winner, SUPREME SOUL, whose connections must have laughed at conditions which brought him in at 115lb so amusing that throwing Shane Ellis up, four pounds overweight at 119lb, is no biggie to a horse that clocked 2:08.2 in winning the Governor’s Cup with 126lb, the same time that BIGDADDYKOOL posted when dismissing SUPERLUMINAL by almost seven lengths in last month’s Prime Minister’s Stakes.
For the heck of it, it would be rather interesting to see the weight allotted to SUPREME SOUL in grade one (not the weight-forage Superstakes or Diamond Mile savings account) after he wins a second open allowance race, especially facing the likes of SHE’S A MANEATER and STRANGER DANGER.
Remember, STRANGER DANGER was ‘rated’ in the unpublished ratings to be seven pounds inferior to BIGDADDYKOOL, yet slammed him by five and a quarter lengths, hardly out of an exercise gallop.