Waller pulls the right rein with Elleegant

Saturday 30 March 2019, 4:01pm

Chris Waller was quick to quash any thought of Verry Elleegant backing up against the males in the Australian Derby after the filly gave him his first Group One Vinery Stud Stakes win at Rosehill.

Starting the well-backed $2.05 favourite, Verry Elleegant was allowed to find her feet early and, significantly, she settled well for jockey James McDonald before storming down the outside for a dominant 1-3/4 length win over the fast-finishing Frankely Awesome ($26).

Waller confirmed Verry Elleegant would press on to the Australian Oaks in two weeks and said he would not entertain an Australian Derby start.

"No. I don't think she likes the seven-day back-up, hence the reason why she didn't run in the Australian Guineas," Waller said.

"The Oaks will do."

Waller inherited the former Victorian-trained filly this campaign and was happy to see her produce her best after tinkering with her gear.

Verry Elleegant has an unusually high head carriage and has at times brought herself undone by over-racing.

She still wasn't perfect in scoring a last-start Phar Lap Stakes win so Waller removed her nose roll and added ear muffs to her racing gear and it paid dividends.

"She's very smart, she obviously just needed a bit of working out," Waller said.

"Having the confidence to take gear off and put extra gear on is easy when you're training winners."

Very Elleegant was the first of two Group One winners for McDonald who also claimed the Tancred Stakes on Godolphin's Avilius.

The jockey had no doubt the gear changes made a difference to Verry Elleegant but felt the addition of blinkers could take her to another level again.

"It was a masterstroke putting the ear muffs on, incredible," McDonald said.

"I could have had her anywhere, she relaxed so well.

"But she might need blinkers now. She hits the front and goes left, right - she thinks the job is done."

While Verry Elleegant won't go to the Derby, trainer Kris Lees hasn't ruled out tackling the race with Frankely Awesome but will make a final decision when he returns from Dubai early in the week.

– AAP

Latest News

Prime Thoroughbreds - We have a Host of Leaders in our Team

Tuesday, 29 June 2021

Prime Thor­ough­bred’s cur­rent rac­ing team is putt­ing to­gether quite a re­cord. We have 22 hors­es that have raced in our team at pre­sent. Six­teen of th­ese are win­n­ers in­clud­ing the Stakes win­n­ing trio Ru­bisa­ki, Fituese and Xtreme­time with Miss Di­vine Em and Miss In Charge run­n­ing 4th in Stakes races. This sees a stakes win­n­er to win­n­er ra­tio of 18.75% with a stake’s per­formed to win­n­er ra­tio of 31.25%. Th­ese are ex­cep­tio­n­al fig­ures.   More »

Freedmans land maiden Group One win

Saturday, 27 February 2021

Un­der-rat­ed fil­ly For­bid­den Love has emerged as an au­tumn car­ni­val smokey with a bril­liant per­for­mance to win the Sur­round Stakes at Rand­wick.  More »

Capriccio completes Damian Lane treble

Saturday, 27 February 2021

In a big day for coun­try-trained hors­es, War­r­nam­bool fil­ly Capric­cio has tak­en out the In­glis Dash for Daniel Bow­man.  More »

More news headlines »