Miss Finland’s daughter Stay With Me has produced a breathtaking finishing sprint to land her first stakes win and confirm herself as a leading Thousand Guineas chance.
Stay With Me, by Street Cry, showed she has plenty of talent of her own as she sprinted down the outside to win Saturday’s Listed Atlantic Jewel Stakes (1200m) at Moonee Valley at her fourth start.
Stay With Me
Group One winner Pasadena Girl ($5.50) showed she’s also in for another good preparation as she hit the line well late to finish 1-1/2 lengths away in second while Jameka ($14) was third first-up, another three-quarters of a length away.
Stay With Me settled back and started to make her run out wide before the home turn, with Pasadena Girl tracking her, before letting down in the straight.
Her jockey Dwayne Dunn was glowing in his praise.
“There’s probably one word – wow,” Dunn said.
Dunn had been thinking the spring might come around too soon for Stay With Me to really show her best but said she’s taken monumental steps in a short space of time and he expects she can be a force.
“There was a lot of merit in the run and I just like the way she savaged the line. She’s showing a lot of traits her mother used to do,” Dunn said.
Miss Finland was trained by David Hayes and won the 2006 Golden Slipper and added another four Group Ones as a three-year-old.
Tom Dabernig, who now trains in partnership with Hayes, said it was hard to compare Stay With Me to “such a champ” as Miss Finland.
The Group One Thousand Guineas is the target and Dabernig is convinced there’s improvement to come.
“She drew a wide gate, had to sit back and she showed an excellent turn of foot,” Dabernig said.
Vlad Duric said Champagne Stakes winner Pasadena Girl ran a super race.
“I followed the winner who probably just quickened a touch quicker than us but she was making ground late,” Duric said.
“She felt every bit as good as last preparation.”
