Mick Price can almost taste Blue Diamond Stakes redemption with unbeaten filly Samaready who emerged the dominant favourite with an outstanding runaway Prelude win at Caulfield.
TAB Sportsbet slashed her quote from $7 equal favourite with stablemate Malasun to $2.80 as she left the other fillies flailing in her wake in a time nearly a second quicker than the colts.
Jimando did not run in the Prelude after being beaten into third place in the Chairman’s Stakes last week and is the $8.50 second favourite.
Price, who controversially lost the 2003 Blue Diamond when Roedean failed a drug test after the application of an ointment, has gone close to winning the feature in recent years but Samaready clearly looks his best hope of success.
Price said the daughter of More Than Ready even exceeded his expectations with the way she was able to race wide and streak clear in the straight to win by 3-1/4 lengths from Formidable and Sweetener.
Malasun finished sixth and another stablemate Tuscan Haze finished last of the 11 runners.
“There is nothing like race day to sort out the blah-blah in this game,” Price said.
“I think the margin, the time and the way she found were a little bit like Flemington (when she won her race debut on December 17) in that she found a gear.
“It certainly points to a nice 1200 metres with her.”
Jockey Craig Newitt declared Samaready the best two-year-old he had ridden and gave her an easy time at the finish with her running the 1100 metres in 1:03.38 which compared with General Rippa’s debut win in the colts and geldings Prelude of 1:04.15.
“Probably six colts went across the line within a length of each other so I don’t think there are six champions there,” Price said.
He said Samaready was heavier and stronger than when she first raced and the Prelude win would bring her on for the $1 million Blue Diamond (1200m) at Caulfield on February 25.
Newitt said the improvement in Samaready had been “unbelievable”.
“I haven’t ridden a lot of really good two-year-olds but she’s the best I have sat on,” Newitt said.
“She probably had the hardest run of the lot today.
“She sat three deep and she just towed up to them and put them away very easily.”
AAP TURF
