Pike depending on Impendabelle

Flying filly continues unusual start to her career with a second Trentham road trip

Tony Pike hasn’t trained a lot of top-class juvenile fillies, but if they were all as easy as Impendabelle he would love some more. The flying filly continues an unusual start to her career with a second road trip from Cambridge to Trentham in as many starts for the $140,000 Wakefield Stakes tomorrow, but Pike says she is the ideal filly to handle it.

“She is very laid back, relaxed so I am not worried about that.”

Impendabelle made a huge impression on her first visit to the capital, exploding to an effortless win that saw her race up the Karaka Million market.

She meets deeper opposition tomorrow and steps up from 900m to 1100m, but the way she hit the line on debut she still looks hard to beat.

“She is a good filly and I haven’t tended to have that many early juvenile fillies in the past, although I had Pacific Dragon last season,” says Pike.

“We usually end up with more colts as our best juveniles, often because we buy yearlings as potential trade horses, but this one came to us through Jim Bruford, who has a very good eye for a horse.

“We took her to Trentham to get an easy kill for her first win and then gave her 10 days off and I think that experience will stand by her for this weekend too.

“I know there is a lot of water to go under the bridge before the Karaka Million but she gives us every indication she will get there. This is an ideal race, being a Group 2 it would really increase her worth.”

Impendabelle comes ¯up against last week’s impressive Otaki debut winner Bella Regazza and the Te Akau filly Believe In Magic as the road to the Karaka Million starts to get busier.

Bella Regazza’s trainer Andrew Forsman also has Aegon heading to Trentham where the former 2000 Guineas winner has opened a $1.85 favourite for the $300,000 Captain Cook Stakes.

Both Pike and Forsman will have runners in the $100,000 Bonecrusher Stakes at Pukekohe on Saturday, with Slipper Island and The Intimidator.

Slipper Island was good enough to push Lickety Split to a neck on debut at Ellerslie last season and even campaigned in Queensland but was unsuited by the big wet.

He has had two starts back this campaign and while Pike believes the son of No Nay Never is going to make a black-type horse, he suggests the 1400m tomorrow could be on the short side

“I think he is ready for 1600m but this is too good a race to miss,” says Pike. “He has all the ability but we decided to ride him a bit colder last start and while he went well it ended up being too far off the winner.

“He is a horse we have earmarked for the Karaka Classic Mile because we think he will continue to get better and that could be a race that Legarto scares a few away from.”

Pike is hoping for improved track conditions at Pukekohe and Trentham tomorrow as he waits to start unleashing the rest of the young talent in his team.

“We don’t have a standout weightfor-age horse but we have a really strong team of young horses,” he explains.

“But the weather has played havoc with trying to get horses started off. Hopefully it is starting to turn because it has set a lot of trainers back.”