Good luck to all our Fillies Pack owners this weekend as our Snitzel filly Until Valhalla tackles the Group 3, $250,000 Spring Stakes over 1600m at Newcastle on Saturday. In a key move, the stable has secured the services of recent Coolmore Stud Stakes winning jockey Rachel King to ride in the 4.05 curtain raiser. Which preceeds the $1M Hunter in the stand-alone feature meeting for the Newcastle Racing Club.
The Spring Stakes is a 3YO set weights contest with runners funnelling in from a variety of formlines, so whilst it is hard to track who the key contenders are, the team are confident this is the right option for our filly.
Until Valhalla’s last start victory holds her strongly in the market with Sky Racing Form Expert Ron Dufficy selecting her as his on top selection in the contest. “She’s got a bit of quality about her. She’s well-bred, she’s had 4 winners come out of her maiden race and another winner out of her win at Kensington 3 weeks ago. I’m with Until Valhalla, I just think the stable gets it right”. A strong push from the well-known racing guru, who’s breeding as a half-sister to Oaks winner Sofia Rosa when she triumphed at Group 1 level over 2400m, which sees her perfectly placed at the 1600m, stepping up in trip. Her sire Snitzel has produced a variety of Group 1 stars over the Group 1 trip, ironically, the last being Yearning in the Thousand Guineas, run on Saturday in Melbourne. Yearning was out of 2400m specialist and Caulfield Cup runner-up Rising Romance.
Until Valhalla is not the only filly in the pack with exciting racing prospects building. Eagle-eyed owners picked up on our unnamed Yes Yes Yes x Luluoru filly having a half-sister place second on debut at Ballarat on Wednesday. Somebodytolove by More Than Ready was an eye-catching second behind the more experienced, Godolphin-trained Juggle in the Porter Plant 3YO Fillies Maiden Plate over 1200m. Trained by Grahame Begg who has race favourite Magic Time in the Sir Rupert Clark Stakes on Saturday, Somebodytolove’s fantastic final 400m, circling the field after settling last was eerily similar to the debut run of Until Valhalla. A great sign of the quality Luluoru can produce, which has been clear to see for all owners in the trainer updates provided by the CMR team.
Very exciting times ahead for multiple runners in the Fillies Pack.