The Jamie Richards trained Probabeel, yet again, underlined her class in no uncertain terms when she carried 60kg to victory, from the worst of the draw, in the Group 3 Geoffrey Bellmaine Stakes over 1200m at Caulfield.
The early part of the race saw jockey Damian Lane looking back for a place to get in from the draw but, when nothing was on offer, he pushed forward out wide to be right in contention when the field turned for home.
Probabeel, who was first-up since the Cox Plate, reached the lead early in the straight, but Lane had still not pushed the ‘go’ button and when he did the very well performed four-year-old mare quickly put the matter beyond doubt winning by a very comfortable 1.25 length margin.
“The race probably didn’t work out as he (Damian Lane) would have liked early,” said Brad Taylor, representing trainer Jamie Richards.
“I said to him there is only one turn and if she could get a bit of cover … which she didn’t in the end … she would finish off strongly. I daresay she will improve a lot off that.
‘The number one target for her now is the All-Star Mile. The voting for her is going pretty well at the moment. I think New Zealand is behind her. I think she is the only Kiwi left in the All-Star Mile.”
Damian Lane gave his insight into the run.
“She was just too good,” said Lane.
“Her trial the other day was just fair without the blinkers and Jamie (Richards) assured me that’s how she can go in trails. I watched her pervious trials and that’s how it looked, but she’d been good in her trackwork since then and obviously was too good today.
“I wanted to ride her quite to hit the line. There looked a lot more speed on paper than eventuated. There were probably two or three there that didn’t go forward who I thought might, so, about halfway down the side, I thought I’m doing more harm than good trying to go back, so I just let her stride … and she just had too much on them.”
