The stewards’ report says Perignon might have had an excuse for her last-start fifth in the Tea Rose Stakes but her trainer still expected more from the filly.
Perignon gets the chance to live up to Gerald Ryan’s expectations in Saturday’s Group One Flight Stakes (1600m) at Randwick.
After the Tea Rose, Perignon was found to have a poor post-race recovery and a case of the thumps – a condition which results in irregular spasms of the diaphragm and is sometimes compared to hiccups in humans.
“She’s as good as gold,” Ryan said. “At the time I thought she was disappointing.
“She loomed up as if she was going to win by two lengths and didn’t go on with it.
“They said she had a poor recovery rate but she’s fine now.”
In the absence of Speak Fondly who ran second in the Golden Rose a week before, the Group Two Tea Rose (1400m) was won by Godolphin filly Pearls who is among Perignon’s opposition in the Flight.
The Gai Waterhouse-trained Speak Fondly is the TAB’s early favourite at $2.80 ahead of Pearls at $6.
Waterhouse will have a strong hand with Tea Rose third-placed Kimberley Star, and stablemates Flamboyant Lass and Sempre Libera among the 12 Flight Stakes entries.
Perignon, who is a $15 chance, has twice finished second to Speak Fondly, once as a two-year-old in the Magic Night Stakes and again in the Furious Stakes in her first start of the season.
The race will determine whether Perignon keeps going further into the spring.
“First we have to see how she handles the 1600 metres. I’ve always thought she would but you don’t know till you try them,” he said.
“But you used to be able to go from the Flight to the Thousand Guineas ten days later.
“Now they have the Guineas on the Saturday it’s too hard to back up a week later in Melbourne and there’s not that much around up here for her.
“Saturday will tell us what to do.”
