Form references around two of the first three horses across the line in the Golden Rose have given connections of Just Party the confidence to bypass a midweek assignment in favour of a black-type mission at Randwick.
The three-year-old was scratched from a benchmark race against older horses at Rosehill on Wednesday to be saved for Saturday’s Listed Dulcify Stakes (1600m) and is among the leading fancies at $4.60 following a last-start fourth to Lady Shenandoah in the Ming Dynasty Quality (1400m).
Just Party was held up for a run until the 300m in that race and was beaten three-quarters of a length, Mayfair finishing second before going on to place behind Broadsiding in last weekend’s Group 1 Golden Rose (1400m).
“Last start, if he’d have got clear running in the straight who knows? He may have even won the race,” co-trainer Gerald Ryan said of Just Party.
“The form out of the race has been good. The horse who ran second came out and ran third in the Golden Rose.
“He has beaten the winner of the Golden Rose at Newcastle on debut. We ran second and Broadsiding ran third, then we ran third in the Fernhill to him.
“Josh (Parr) came out and rode him in a gallop Wednesday morning and he worked very well. I’m happy to be going there.”
Just Party’s Ming Dynasty effort followed a forgivable first-up run when he failed to beat a rival home but subsequently pulled up with cardia arrhythmia.
Ryan and training partner Sterling Alexiou gave him almost a month to recover with a barrier trial in between and he proved he was back on track with his last start effort.
Just Party will be among three stakes runners for the duo at Randwick along with Arctic Glamour, who spearheads their team in the Group 1 Epsom Handicap (1600m), and Perle De Chocolat in the Group 3 Gimcrack Stakes (1000m).
A daughter of Astern, Perle De Chocolat finished runner-up to Saturday’s rival Strada Varenna at the official two-year-old trials and Ryan said she had taken enormous benefit from the experience.
“She trialled well and she has improved heaps off it,” he said.
“She is a tough little thing. If you’d said to me three months ago she would be your first two-year-old runner, I would have laughed at you.
“But she has kept coping, she’s strong, she is eating her feed.
“Her biggest assets are her strength and her attitude. I think she will go there and run very well.”
