Oaks on skyline if Nashville can stay
GOLD Coast training partners Bryan and Daniel Guy have ambitions of taking Nashville Skyline to the Group 1 Queensland Oaks – they just need to determine if the filly can actually stay first.
Nashville Skyline won the QTIS Three-Year-Old Fillies Maiden Plate (1400m) at the Gold Coast on Saturday in her first run of her second preparation.
The filly’s first preparation as a two-year-old earlier this year ended with a ninth to The Mission in the Group 1 Champagne Stakes (1600m) at Randwick and a seventh to Sneaky Glance in a Gold Coast Maiden Handicap (1200m) in May.
Those runs prompted jockeys Brenton Avdulla and Larry Cassidy to suggest Nashville Skyline would be a quality long-distance runner.
“They both came in and said they think she is a staying filly,” Bryan Guy said.
“They said she will get over ground, especially Brenton. He said he thought she would make a good Queensland Oaks filly.”
On that advice the Guys gave Nashville Skyline a break and are now building up the three-year-old to test her stamina over longer races with one eye on the Queensland Oaks (2400m) at the Brisbane winter carnival.
“That’s our plan with her in the long run,” Guy said.
“But we have to wait and see if she can stay first.
“We will try to step up this preparation to get her up over the ground and go from there.
“We have set our sights on getting her ready for next year’s winter carnival.”
Nashville Skyline is by Not A Single Doubt, who is better known as a sire of sprinters rather than stayers.
However, his progeny include Single Gaze, who finished second in the Caulfield Cup (2400m) before running 17th in the Melbourne Cup (3200m) last week.
Guy said Nashville Skyline would follow a similar path to his former star stayer Eagle Way who won the 2016 Queensland Derby (2400m) at Eagle Farm.
“She will virtually go on the same plan as what I did with Eagle Way before Christmas,” Guy said.
“She will go to a mile, step up to an 1800m and then we are going to find out what she can do.”
WE HAVE SET OUR SIGHTS ON GETTING HER READY FOR NEXT YEAR’S WINTER CARNIVAL BRYAN GUY