The last time Getta Good Feeling was at the races she started odds-on favourite in the 2500-metre VRC Oaks, but she will resume in a race not even half that distance this Saturday at Flemington.
Trainer Danny O’Brien is taking advantage of the $525,000 Easter Yearling Sale buy’s availability for the Inglis Race Series to launch her campaign in the $1 million Inglis Sprint over 1200m.
Quality sprinters Raging Force and Alpha Sophie headline the list of Getta Good Feeling’s potential rivals but O’Brien would not be shocked if she runs a big race fresh following a close-up third placing in an 800m Flemington jumpout last Friday.
“There are not many options for her to kick off, but it’s a nice starting point; 1200 metres down the straight at Flemington, it gets a good gallop into her and sets her up for the rest of the campaign,” O’Brien said.
“She’s obviously more effective at 1400 and a mile, but she’s a preparation older now, she’s sharper, her work so far has been very good and her trial Friday was very good.
“She seems to have come back in really good shape.”
After recording her first win in the Group 2 Edward Manifold Stakes (1600m), Getta Good Feeling ran third in the Group 1 Thousand Guineas (1600m) and won the Group 2 Wakeful Stakes (2000m) before failing to run out the Oaks distance, when sixth behind Strictly Business.
For that reason, O’Brien did not even nominate Getta Good Feeling for the Group 1 ATC Australian Oaks (2400m) in Sydney and she also will not contest the key lead-up to that race, the Group 1 Vinery Stud Stakes (2000m), for which she is second favourite.
The $1 million Group 1 Australasian Oaks (2000m) at Morphettville on April 25 is what her campaign has been geared around.
“After Saturday, she’ll then go probably three weeks and run over a mile (at Caulfield) at what was the old Moonee Valley meeting in the three-year-old fillies mile,” O’Brien said, referring to the $200,000 Group 3 Alexandra Stakes (1600m).
“We’ll just space her runs through to the Australasian Oaks.
“There’s an option to go to Brisbane after that. The Oaks in Brisbane is 2200 and we just thought the 2500 in the spring found her out for stamina late.”
