Empire Rose Stakes in plans for Miss Siska

Thursday 12 September 2019, 11:45am

After going agonisingly close to winning a Group One with Miss Siska in the autumn, trainer Grahame Begg is hopeful the mare can deliver an even better result at the elite level this spring.

Miss Siska resumes in Saturday's Group Two Let's Elope Stakes (1400m) at Flemington, beginning a campaign aimed at the Group One Empire Rose Stakes (1600m) at the same track on November 2.

Her performance in the Group One Coolmore Legacy Stakes (1600m) at Randwick during her previous preparation in April indicated to Begg she had the class to be a contender for the Empire Rose for fillies and mares this spring.

Miss Siska hit the front early in the straight in the Coolmore Legacy only to be swamped in the final strides to finish a close fourth behind Kenedna, Dixie Blossoms and Unforgotten.

"She can certainly measure right up amongst them," Begg said.

"That was as good a field as you'd get for mares. A lot of them have been retired now.

"Obviously they're not easy to win and she probably needs to win something to get her rating up a bit more to assure herself a start (in the Empire Rose)."

Miss Siska is a half-sister to star sprinter Hay List who won three Group One races during his career, much of it spent racing against Black Caviar.

Six-year-old Miss Siska won first-up last preparation over 1400m in the Gold Bracelet at Bendigo in her first start for Begg, having formerly been trained by Tony McEvoy and Tony Noonan.

She has two wins from four first-up attempts.

"She is coming along well but she has got good improvement in her," Begg said.

"She still looks very wintry in the coat but her coat is just starting to shift now and once she gets a run under her belt it would certainly bring her on.

"I'd say she was probably a tad more forward last preparation when she won at Bendigo, and obviously this is a different grade of race too.

"She will certainly run well, there's no doubt about that, but with good improvement to come."

Fidelia, unbeaten at Flemington from three appearances, was the equal $4 favourite for the Let's Elope on Thursday along with My Pendant ($4.20), while Miss Siska was rated a $13 chance.

– 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 »