Joe Pride can make a genuine case for the odds being in his favour despite TJ Smith Stakes bookmakers barely rating his in-form stable a chance in the $2.5 million sprint.
Pride has already trained two Group One winners – Steps In Time and Tiger Tees – during the Sydney autumn carnival and both will front up in the weight-for-age sprint at Randwick on Saturday.
They will be joined in the race by See The World after part-owner Peter Horwitz parted with $55,000 to make the sprinter a late entry at acceptance time.
With $1.5 million going to Saturday’s winner, Horwitz is effectively taking $27 about his horse who is a $71 chance in most markets.
It is a gamble Pride insists is worthwhile, based on the betting profile of the Group One winners he has trained during his career and See The World’s well-being.
“I’ve won nine Group One races and except Steps In Time all of them have won at double figures,” Pride said.
Steps In Time is given the best chance of Pride’s trio at $17 with Galaxy winner Tiger Tees at $26.
But Pride is giving See The World a much better shot at an upset than his quote suggests.
“They’ve got his price wrong … he’ll run out of his skin,” Pride said.
“In the Galaxy he lost a front shoe and he got galloped on. He lost the race at the start and was never going to make up the ground.”
Like he did before the Galaxy, Pride is agonising over his top pick in a race he won in 2006 with Red Oog.
“I can find a reason to say they are all going to run well,” he said.
“Probably the best-performed at the moment is Steps In Time and I think she’s going super but I don’t take anything away from the other two’s chances.
“And especially once we start looking at a real wet track, they start coming right into it.”
