Group One autumn targets remain undecided for boom sprinter Rain Affair but trainer Joe Pride is single minded in his ambitions for another of his stable stars in Sacred Choice.
Both Rain Affair and Sacred Choice will step out in 800m barrier trials at Warwick Farm on Tuesday as Pride rolls out his major autumn carnival hopefuls which also includes multiple stakes winner Neeson.
Rain Affair, unbeaten in his past seven starts including the Group Three Missile Stakes and Listed Carrington Stakes on January 2, is expected to get his first test at Group One level this preparation but Pride is keeping his options open as to where that might be.
“He’s having a top-up trial on Tuesday before going to the Expressway Stakes,” Pride said.
“He’s going really well. After the Carrington he went out to Limitless Lodge on the water walker for ten days and then came back in.
“I don’t know where I’m going to go with him yet. He could go to the Newmarket, he could go to the TJ Smith. I’m just keeping it pretty open with him at the moment and I’ll just worry about the Expressway first.”
Dual Group One winner Sacred Choice could join Rain Affair in the weight-for-age Expressway (1200m) on February 11 at Rosehill first-up as she prepares for her racing swan song at the end of the autumn carnival.
Pride is targeting back-to-back Doncaster Handicaps with Sacred Choice who claimed the feature mile at Randwick last year in torrential rain on a heavy track.
Her other Group One triumph was also in similarly wet conditions at Flemington in the Myer Classic (1600m) in 2010.
Sacred Choice just failed to go back-to-back in the Myer last spring when second to Hurtle Myrtle on a dead track.
“Sacred Choice seems to have come back in really good order,” Pride said.
“She’ll be aimed specifically at the Doncaster and will have much the same preparation as previous campaigns.
“We’ve been lucky that on the two biggest days of her career she has really got the conditions to suit and I just hope it can happen for a third time (on Doncaster day).”
Neeson will go around in the same 800m trial as Sacred Choice and is being aimed at the Group One TJ Smith (1200m) at Randwick fourth-up in April.
Neeson’s two biggest wins have been at the track in the Group Two Premiere Stakes (1200m)
last spring and the Group Three Tramway Handicap (1400m) the year before.
Pride won the TJ Smith with Red Oog in 2006.
AAP TURF
