Gai Waterhouse | Gai Waterhouse News 57638 Playing By The Rules

Our Racing Manager, Emma Reeves, aids us with programming and identifies who she thinks is the best placed horse each weekend.

Lady Of Poise, Saturday 3rd Feb, Caulfield, Race 1:

My story is on repeat at present, but these three-year-old fillies seem to be winning in Melbourne week after week so I’m sticking with it. A $150,000 3-Year-Old Fillies Benchmark 70 Handicap just wouldn’t exist in Sydney; you wouldn’t even find one for half the money at the midweeks. We’re therefore often forced to run these winning fillies against older mares, and that’s if we’re lucky and those contests exist, so these races we’re heading south for are much more winnable. Lady Of Poise is first up here, unlike Power Ballard and Very Sewreel, but again if you had asked me to create the race conditions for this filly, this would be it.

While he doesn’t fit quite as perfectly as Lady Poise, I wanted to give a special mention to Jon Bon. We’ve purposefully timed his preparation to mirror Major Beel’s from this time last year. He kicked off in this Class 1 Handicap over 1300 metres, beating none other than Everest contender Hawaii Five Oh before he too came under our care, then went on to win the Group 1 ATC Derby two months later. Jon Bon is first up over a distance short of his best and races older horses, but I’m hopeful that he could be an interesting story that unfolds.