Champion trainers chase southern riches at Menangle

By Adam Hamilton

AFTER striking a one-two blow in last month’s Miracle Mile, the Queenslanders are returning to Sydney in force on Saturday night.

While Leap To Fame and The Janitor, who snared the Miracle Mile quinella, are staying home, their trainers are chasing more NSW riches at Menangle.

Grant Dixon has four-year-old mare Cool And Classy in the Robin Dundee Stakes, the last qualifier for Saturday week’s $200,000 Group 1 Queen Elizabeth II Mile at Menangle, and Amylee drawn the pole in the third heat of the NSW Oaks.

Cool And Classy won last year’s NSW Oaks.

The Janitor’s trainer Chantal Turpin has an even stronger hand with Arrive in the Robin Dundee and four runners across the three Oaks’ heats.

Stripes (gate three) and Alwaysbjoy (10) are heat one, boom filly Havtimetodream (five) in heat two and Ima Booty Shaker (11) in the final heat.

Trainer Gemma Hewitt enhances the Queensland flavour with Post Painter (gate four) in the Robin Dundee and Zeezeezoom drawn the pole in the first Oaks heat.

Cool And Classy, who boasts 14 wins from 24 starts, is drawn well in gate two but faces a powerhouse field of mares, headed by Luke McCarthy’s superstar Eye Keep Smiling (gate 10).

Emerging Victorian mare Wicked Confession (gate two), former Kiwi Tokyo Rose (seven), Arrive (eight) and star Victorian Beach Diamond (nine) and to the fantastic depth of the Robin Dundee.

Waiting for them in the Queen Elizabeth are Australia’s top mare Captains Mistress and last week’s brilliant qualifying winner Steno.

Cool And Classy broke a 14-year drought for Queenslanders in the NSW Oaks last year, becoming the first to win since Darrel Graham trained and drove Courageous Annie in 2011.

But the depth and quality of this year’s runners for Dixon, Turpin and Hewitt give Queensland a strong chance of going back-to-back.

Outside of the Queenslanders, the major Oaks contenders are Sparkling, Sea, who has already qualified through winning the Golden Easter Egg on April 11, Ripples and Willows Girl in heat one, Ravishing Ruby and Ark Sea in the second heat, along with Senses and Arrhythmia in heat three.

So much interest centres around the Turpin-trained Kiwi import Havtimetodream, who brilliantly won her first three Albion Park starts for the stable before a close second in the Raith Memorial at Menangle on Miracle Mile night (March 14).

Although she hasn’t raced since, the filly stunned onlookers with a scorching recent Albion Park trial win.

Havtimetodream beat last year’s Inter Dominion runner-up Speak The Truth by 20.3m in the trial and clocked a staggering 1min49.5sec mile rate, just 0.9sec outside Leap To Fame’s 1660m track record.

Meanwhile, Leap To Fame and The Janitor are having freshen-ups after their recent NZ trip and aiming towards the Brisbane Inter Dominion in July.