Top juvenile on Waterhouse’s mind

GAI WATERHOUSE admits she wakes up at 1am thinking about Vancouver and the possibility of the youngster becoming another triple crown winner.

“He is the best two-year-old colt in Sydney since Pierro,” she announced.

The Golden Slipper is only part of the grand plan for Vancouver, who is unbeaten in two starts following a storming win in the Canonbury Stakes at Rosehill at the weekend.

Waterhouse has made a habit of getting her male Golden Slipper winners to keep going, with Dance Hero and Pierro completing the triple crown, while Sebring just missed sweeping Sydney’s juvenile Group I races.

“The Golden Slipper and hopefully the triple crown, I’m always thinking about all of those races together,” Waterhouse said.

“I wake up at 1am thinking about my babies and he is certainly one of them. He will go to the Sliver Slipper next.”

Vancouver was made a $6 Golden Slipper favourite after lumping three kilograms more than his rivals and giving them a start and a beating.

He swooped down the outside to run over the top of Outreach and win going away by three-quarters of a length. Chamarel filled third a further three lengths away.

Outreach, who started favourite, was particularly brave. He pulled-up lame and was subsequently found to have broken his pelvis.

He will have a long

spell and hopefully return as a three-yearold.

The win confirmed Tommy Berry’s opinion of Vancouver, a Medaglia D’oro colt, who won the Breeders Plate in the spring.

“I was always confident that he was very good, but you want to see them do it,” Berry said. “He is only going to get better from that.

“It’s not just the Slipper, but the Sires [Produce] and Champagne Stakes because as the races get longer, he will be better suited because he is so relaxed.

“What you see now, he will be five lengths better than that on Slipper day.”

There was confidence around several runners in early betting with the TAB laying bets of $45,000 on Outreach at $3.80 and Mawahibb at $3.80, and another of $10,000 at $8 on Chamarel.

Punters shunned Vancouver, who drifted from $3.20 to $5 on track, but Waterhouse was not concerned.

“They were the best males in NSW and he beat them,” she said. “He has just got that [Pierro] feel about him. I don’t want to compare them but he has got certain traits that I like to see in a good colt.

“This

was

his

biggest

learn- ing experience and he had come through it.”

Vancouver shied at the winning post and shifted out when he let down in the centre of the track, earning Berry a severe reprimand, but it couldn’t temper the jockey’s delight.

“Coming to the corner I thought I was travelling well but all the horse around me were starting to niggle and I didn’t think I was going to get a run,” Berry said. “He needs that little time to wind up so I just came back off [Ulster’s] back and he ate up ground. I had to lose a little ground to make up a lot and did so quickly.” Fairfax