Queanbeyan trainer Joe Cleary will put aside the disappointment of Girls Are Ready’s last-start defeat to chase another big QTIS bonus pay day at Eagle Farm.
Girls Are Ready will tackle the TAB QTIS Two-Year-Old Handicap which carries bonus payments of $36,250 on top of the first prize of $42,500.
A noted wet tracker Girls Are Ready was backed from $16 into $4.40 on the back of a pre-race deluge in the $500,000 Aquis Jewel at the Gold Coast last Saturday.
Ironically the heavy track proved her undoing and she finished eighth.
“You wouldn’t believe it as we wanted rain and then we were suddenly piggy in the middle,” Cleary said.
“Jess (Taylor) got trapped behind and beside horses in the worst going and she couldn’t see for the last 600 metres.”
“But you can’t turn back the clock and Girls Are Ready will back up at Eagle Farm as long as she continues to please me.
“I didn’t realise the total prize for QTIS fillies was so good and it is well worth chasing. She can run Saturday and then spell.”
In-form apprentice Jag Guthmann Chester will claim 2kg reducing her weight to 56kg.
Girls Are Ready is the second favourite behind the Neville Saunders-trained Sizzlng Babe.
Connections opted not to run Sizzling Babe last week in the Aquis Jewel.
She won her last start over the Eagle Farm 1400m on March 9 with a withering final 200m.
Another of Cleary’s promising fillies, Kiss My Swiss, is likely to run at the Gold Coast instead of a Three-Year-Old Handicap at Eagle Farm on Saturday.
“I brought her up as a travelling companion for Girls Are Ready but she can have a run before spelling,” Cleary said.
“The 900 metres at the Gold Coast looks the right race for her.”
