Big plans tabled for pint-sized White Sage

Thursday 14 November 2013, 4:16pm

Unbeaten mare White Sage has a lot more going for her than first meets the eye - which isn't much at all.

Certain to be one of the smallest horses racing at Rosehill on Saturday, White Sage will put her perfect record on the line as the shortest-priced favourite of the day.

In an era when big yearlings command the highest prices because it is thought they turn into superior racehorses, the diminutive White Sage is taking on all comers and beating them.

After three victories from as many starts with a combined winning margin of 14 lengths, White Sage will be odds-on for the fourth time in her career to extend her winning sequence in the Cellarbrations Scone Handicap (1350m).

And if she comes through with her record intact, trainer John O'Shea says it will be a triumph for her pedigree page over any obvious physical limitations.

"She is by Reset and the little Reset fillies are pretty good," O'Shea said.

"I had her sister by Starcraft and she could gallop ... she comes from a good family."

Reset's deeds as a sire shot to spring carnival prominence when Fawkner won the Caulfield Cup.

But ill-fated Cox Plate winner Pinker Pinker shapes as the best of the stakes-winning fillies and mares he has left in a list which also includes the O'Shea-trained Warpath.

Warpath won her way through to the Group One stage, finishing midfield in the 2011 Coolmore Classic, a race O'Shea thinks is an obvious autumn target for White Sage.

"I think you have to go down that path and I'd love to give her a run over 1500 metres at Rosehill (the Coolmore Classic course) before giving her a break," he said.

O'Shea will use stable apprentice Lester Grace's three kilo allowance to reduce White Sage's 59.5kg impost.

For an added bonus, Grace heads to Rosehill in winning form - and with an endorsement from his master - after landing the spoils on the O'Shea-trained Kencella at Warwick Farm on Wednesday.

– AAP

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