Under the urgings of jockey Damien Oliver, progressive mare My Pendant has got the job done as a short-priced favourite at Flemington.
But only just.
The Danny O’Brien-trained My Pendant was the $1.80 favourite in Saturday’s VRC Member Peter Cosgriff Handicap (1400m) and needed all of the Flemington straight to overhaul Special Diva, who proved tough to chase down in the heavy conditions after getting a nice run in front.
My Pendant had to come from back in the field and still had a length to make up in the final 100m but kept eating into the margin and lunged late to score by a short half-head, with 2-1/4-lengths to Shokora third.
“I was a bit concerned there at one stage but when I really asked her she found enough,” Oliver said.
My Pendant took her record to four wins from eight starts and the four-year-old has only finished outside the top two once, when unplaced in the Group Three Vanity at the end of her previous campaign.
The mare is expected to get her chance at stakes level again this spring but first O’Brien plans to run her in a 1400m handicap for mares at Caulfield in three weeks.
“There’s three or four stakes races for mares over 1400 metres, both here and at Caulfield, between now and the end of the spring. So I’m sure she will get her chance in one of them,” O’Brien said.
