While Mark Kavanagh has been forced into a waiting game with star filly Atlantic Jewel, rival trainer Guy Walter has Streama well on the way ahead of her autumn campaign.
Streama earned superlatives with her devastating win in the Flight Stakes on October 1 then was all but forgotten 11 days later when Atlantic Jewel sparkled in the Thousand Guineas.
Walter opted to end Streama’s spring after the Flight Stakes (1600m) which followed victories in the Furious and Tea Rose Stakes to take her record to four wins and three placings from eight starts.
Atlantic Jewel’s spring came to an end after another demolition in the Wakeful Stakes (2000m), her fifth win from five starts.
Soreness in her pelvic region has kept her off the track since with a scintigraphy showing hot spots but Kavanagh is hopeful of a Sydney campaign.
Just what that will entail has not been determined but it could be a clash with Streama in the Doncaster Mile at Randwick in April.
“Streama has been back for a while. She is at the Goulburn stable and coming along well,” Walter said.
“She will trial in mid to late January.
“The plan is for her to resume in the Light Fingers and go on to the Surround and then maybe Coolmore, the Queen of the Turf or the Doncaster.
“All those races are options for her.”
Kavanagh said all the big races including the Doncaster or the longer Australian Derby and/or the Oaks were possibilities for Atlantic Jewel as long as she continued to improve.
On the same day Streama won the Flight Stakes, her stablemate Doctor Doom gave the trainer a rare Group One double when he won the Spring Champion Stakes (2000m).
Again Walter wasn’t tempted to extend the lightly raced three-year-old’s spring to Melbourne and he was also spelled.
He is at the same stage of his preparation as Streama and will be aimed at the Derby.
“He will have a program targeting the Rosehill Guineas and the Derby,” Walter said.
“I’m not sure whether he will run in the Randwick Guineas. He could run in the Tulloch Stakes on the way instead.”
Darci Be Good, who finished a half neck second to Doctor Doom in the Spring Champion, is also on a Derby path in the care of Bede Murray who is pleased with his progress.
“He’s been back for two or three weeks and I couldn’t be happier with him,” Murray said.
AAP TURF
