Diamond Effort has revelled in the soft conditions at Caulfield to post a dominant win in her return from a spell.
Prepared by Clinton McDonald, Diamond Effort is a sister to the trainer’s former multiple stakes winner Second Effort who excelled when racing in wet conditions and won 11 of his 36 career starts.
Among Second Effort’s stakes wins were back-to-back successes in the feature sprint during the Warrnambool May Carnival, the Listed Wangoom, in 2012 and 2013 on rain-affected ground.
McDonald said that race could also figure in Diamond Effort’s plans this year after the four-year-old made a one-act affair of Saturday’s Robert Hunter Handicap (1100m) in benchmark-78 grade to win by four lengths on a soft track.
“She is a full-sister to Second Effort so it was never really a concern for us,” McDonald said of Saturday’s wet conditions.
“She had done everything right leading into the race so we were pretty confident she would be very hard to beat.
“We’ll just have a look but we’ll probably try to find another mares’ race for her and I just said to the owners we might have to put her away because if she likes the wet that much we might have a look at The Wangoom.”
Diamond Effort took her record to four wins from 10 starts.
