It is always a gamble to pay a late entry fee into a feature race but with a winner’s purse of $1.2 million up for grabs in the Blue Diamond Stakes it is one well worth taking.
Trainers Trent Busuttin and Natalie Young along with the connections of Field Of Play parted with $55,000 to have the Field Of Play run in Victoria’s most prestigious two-year-old race at Caulfield on Saturday.
Field Of Play is one of two unbeaten two-year-olds in Saturday’s Group 1 contest, coming off a debut win at Moonee Valley, importantly at 1200m, before taking out the Blue Diamond Prelude for colts and geldings over 1100m at Caulfield on February 8.
With almost $300,000 in the bank from those two wins, Busuttin said the late payment was an easy choice to make after the gelding was not entered for the Group 1 race when entries were taken last year as he had been earmarked to head to Hong Kong.
Busuttin said the lead up to Saturday since the Caulfield victory had been very smooth and while there will be more pressure with 16 runners, the co-trainer is sure Field Of Play will be up to it.
“He sat up outside the lead last time and they weren’t hacking the other day,” Busuttin said.
“He’s got good natural speed, he’s a good natural horse.
“I was speaking to Blake Shinn on Tuesday morning and running through things, and I said ‘if we draw wide, we go back, and we’ll still be good enough to be in it’.
He said ‘it won’t matter what we draw, we’ll be going forward’, so the draw takes care of that.”
Field Of Play drew barrier five on Saturday as Shinn chases a first win in the prestigious event while Busuttin and Young a second having scored with Tagaloa in 2020.
Tagaloa ran the second fastest time in the last 25 years when successful, just 0.01 seconds slower than Sepoy in 2011 and one of only four two-year-olds to have broken 1:09.00 in that period.
“I think we drew three and four the year we won it,” Busuttin said.
“Letzbeglam (from three) was outside the lead and Tagaloa was three deep without cover.
“They all raved on about bias that day and that the second horse Hanseatic should have won. Hanseatic drew one and peeled off their heels and had every opportunity.
“Not many horses win a Blue Diamond sitting three deep without cover, and I certainly hope that’s not the case with this bloke.
“In a perfect world he’ll be one-one, but Blake will sort that out.”
One thing Busuttin knows is the 1200m won’t be a concern for Field Of Play.
“Everyone will say their horse is going to improve, which they naturally will,” Busuttin said.
“The second horse (Devil Night), it was a big effort to run second on debut and is drawn well, and I think is the one to beat, while the fillies have done nothing wrong, and the chances don’t end there.
“But I think our horse is the one to beat. He hasn’t been dominant to the point where you would say he’s just going out and win, but I wouldn’t be swapping him with any other runner.”
