Gai Waterhouse | Gai Waterhouse News 57535 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.

Power Ballard, Saturday 20th January, Flemington, Race 4:

I’m heading down a similar path as last week with us sending a three-year-old, city winning filly down to Flemington to race her own age group having raced consistently well against older, more seasoned mares in Sydney. The cherry on top this week is that this race is against three-year-old fillies. In addition to that, it was published as a benchmark 78 but the highest rated horse is 70 and she has been allotted 60kg, so it is now a three-year-old fillies benchmark 70 handicap which couldn’t be more perfect for Power Ballard who has a rating of 65. Again, similar to last week, my query is sticking at the same distance fourth up as our horses tend to naturally stretch out in trip to different degrees but speaking with Gai and Adrian, this filly might just be an out and out speedster. On form it looks as though she is going a month between runs, but she had a jumpout at Flemington two weeks ago, Victoria’s version of a trial, so don’t let that deter you. This may also be in her favour, helping her remain fresh for the 1100 metres again. If you’d asked me to create the perfect race conditions for this filly, this would be it to a tee with the added bonus of it being worth $150,000, so she has to be my best placed horse of the week.