Slipper start still sinking in for Olive

Thursday 19 March 2015, 5:54pm

Win or lose, Nick Olive plans to soak up the experience of having a runner in the world's richest race for two-year-olds.

Connections of Single Gaze paid a $150,000 late entry fee to secure the filly a spot in Saturday's $3.5 million race at Rosehill.

And the Canberra trainer is pinching himself as he comes to terms with being part of one of the biggest races on the Australian calendar.

"It probably hasn't 100 per cent sunk in yet to be honest," Olive said.

"We know we're in a big race but it hasn't sunk in that it's the Golden Slipper."

The trainer sent the Black Opal Stakes runner-up to Sydney on Thursday, keen for her to settle into a stable at Rosehill rather than tackle a three-hour float trip from Canberra on race morning.

"It's the Golden Slipper and we just want to try to hook on to as many of those one per cent things as we can," he said.

Olive will follow Single Gaze to Sydney on Friday after he watches Without A Shadow run in a Country Championship Qualifier at Goulburn.

Then the butterflies might start.

"It will probably hit me then," Olive said.

The 42-year-old has been training for a decade and went close to a Group One win when Zenarta was second in the 2006 Australasian Oaks.

But getting a horse into a Golden Slipper has exceeded his expectations.

"There's only 16 horses each year that can go in it, so to make it, I never thought in my wildest dreams we'd get a horse in the Slipper," Olive said.

Single Gaze came up with a wide barrier at Tuesday's draw and is at $51.

Olive acknowledged the filly was an underdog but remained convinced she had improved since the Black Opal.

"I don't know how many she'll pass but she'll be passing horses on the way to the line," he said.

"Whether she's good enough to win it, we won't know until Saturday.

"But I'm confident she'll run a cracking race."

– AAP

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