Top mare Outback Barbie brings up her 20th start in a feature race when she resumes racing at her favourite track in the Group Three BRC Sprint at Doomben.
The BRC Sprint (1200m) on Saturday is usually one of the lesser lead-ups to the Group One Stradbroke Handicap but this year is one of two major warm-up races with the winter carnival drastically truncated by coronavirus restrictions.
Outback Barbie will be having her eighth start at Doomben and all her runs at the track have been in stakes races.
All her 19 starts have been in stakes, Magic Millions or special races.
Outback Barbie has had 15 stakes starts, three in Magic Millions races and also raced in the feature, The Gateway.
She started her career winning the Listed Calaway Gal Stakes as a two-year-old and has since won the Listed Just Now Stakes Quality and Listed Keith Noud at Doomben.
Outback Barbie has also run seconds in the Group Three George Moore and Listed Gold Edition Plate around Doomben.
Her other two Doomben runs were a sixth in a Listed Quality Handicap and a fifth in the Group One Doomben 10,000.
Outback Barbie’s other win was in the Gold Coast’s Magic Millions QTIS race in January and she ran third in both the Magic Millions 2YO Classic and Magic Millions Guineas at that track.
If there is a chink in Outback Barbie’s record it is at Eagle Farm where her main winter targets, the Group Two Victory Stakes and Group One Stradbroke, will be run.
Outback Barbie has had four starts at Eagle Farm and is yet to run a place.
Trainer Tony Gollan said Outback Barbie has had excuses in her Eagle Farm runs but it was a worrying statistic.
“Outback Barbie has twice been Group Two-placed on the big Randwick track and she handled Rosehill on a trip to Sydney,” Gollan said.
“I suppose we will find out if there have been genuine excuses at Eagle Farm or she hates the place. Just a bad time to find out.”
He said Outback Barbie was ready to continue her great Doomben record on Saturday.
“She won a strong trial two weeks ago and she has won three of her five runs first-up,” Gollan said.
“The mare has raced against the top shelf her whole career and always does her best.
“Outback Barbie deserves a win in a Group One race and her only chance this winter is in the Stradbroke.”
Outback Barbie cost $210,000 at the 2017 Magic Millions Yearling sale and has returned $1.3 million.
She is from the first crop of star Queensland sire Spirit of Boom and helped put the stallion on the breeding map.
“I trained Spirit of Boom to win two Group Ones and it would obviously also be great to train one of his daughters to win a big one like the Stradbroke,” Gollan said.
He also has ruling Stradbroke favourite Vega One, an unlucky fourth first-up, in Saturday’s BRC Sprint.
“The only problem has been we had to start his campaign at 1000 metres at the Sunshine Coast instead of a 1200 metre race as we had planned,” Gollan said.
Vega One is already in the Stradbroke field after winning the ballot-free The Gateway in December.
“He is the reverse from Outback Barbie. He loves Eagle Farm,” Gollan said.
