Extreme Choice firms as Diamond favourite

Saturday 6 February 2016, 4:27pm

Extreme Choice has tightened his grip on favouritism for the Blue Diamond Stakes with an authoritative win in the Group Three Chairman's Stakes.

The Mick Price-trained colt firmed from $5 to $2.70 for the Blue Diamond in three weeks after resuming with a 4-1/2 length victory at Caulfield on Saturday.

Price compared Extreme Choice, unbeaten in two starts, to a former Blue Diamond winner he trained.

"He reminds me very much of Samaready, as in being a natural," Price said.

And he said horses such as Miracles Of Life, who might have been a query at 1200m, have been able to win Blue Diamonds being ready-made two-year-olds.

"We think he'll get it (the 1200m) pretty well," Price said.

"We think he's going to be a red-hot chance in the race for sure."

Ridden by Damien Oliver, Extreme Choice ($1.40) found the lead and relaxed well before scooting away to set up a winning break.

Oliver then allowed Extreme Choice to cruise to the post to defeat Highland Beat with Gratwick three-quarters of a length away third.

"I suppose raceday tells all, as it did," Price said.

"The main thing is he was strong to the line, the time was good and he did it with something up his sleeve," Price said.

Price is reserving judgment on his leading Blue Diamond hope until after next week's Preludes when Flying Artie resumes with Oliver aboard.

"We won't make a decision on jockeys until after next Saturday," Price said.

Oliver said Extreme Choice couldn't have been more impressive heading to the Diamond next start.

"I could have taken a sit today if I wanted to. It's good he's got that string to his bow if he needs it," Oliver said.

"He's everything you want in a two-year-old."

Defcon is on the second line of Blue Diamond betting at $8 ahead of Calliope ($9) and Flying Artie ($11).

Valliano, winner of the Inglis Premier on Saturday, firmed from $51 to $21 for the Diamond.

– 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 »