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Trainer Russell Cameron is confident he has the right filly in Lady Of Harrods to put him back in the Group One spotlight in Wednesday's $500,000 Thousand Guineas at Caulfield.
Photo by Racing and Sports
His seven career G1 wins include the Stradbroke and Newmarket Handicaps with Toledo, two Australia Stakes with Toledo and Bomber Bill and the Thousand Guineas in 2000 with All Time High.
In 2004 he left Victoria to take up a retainer as a private trainer in New Zealand where he enjoyed a successful stint before returning to Melbourne in 2008.
Cameron has since rolled out a steady flow of winners from his Flemington stable with several notable black type victories along the way including the Moonee Valley Cup with The Sportsman and the Caloundra and Launceston Cups with Fast Future.
However none possessed the classy natural talent of Lady Of Harrods, a filly Cameron feels can give him a second Thousand Guineas win on Wednesday.
The Dubawi filly has won three of her six starts and is going into Wednesday's classic on the back of impressive wins in the HDF McNeil Stakes (1200m) and Thousand Guineas Prelude (1400m) at her latest outing on September 22.
Cameron says he has taken a calculated gamble by not giving Lady Of Harrods another start since September 22, believing keeping the filly fresh will give her every chance to run a strong 1600m at her first attempt.
He also was fearful of bringing undone the hours he spent educating Lady Of Harrods to settle kindly in her races, work that brought its reward in the Prelude when she sat on the back of boom filly Commanding Jewel and ran her down over the 1400m at Caulfield giving her 2kg in weight.
Photo by Racing and Sports
"In her work we had been trying to teach her to sit off the other horses then just work home," Cameron said.
"I just felt another one might throw her over."I'm pretty happy with where she is at. If she's going to run it out she'll run it this way."
The barrier draw fell into place for Lady Of Harrods. From barrier three her rider Jamie Mott will have the opportunity to drop into the trailing position behind the lead just as she did in the Prelude.
Commanding Jewel is certain to again push forward from gate eight but there are other likely leaders including the Sydney filly Longport (gate 12), Edward Manifold Stakes winner Maybe Discreet (9) and Big Chill (4).
Commanding Jewel's trainer Leon Corstens believes his filly has benefited from her third to Maybe Discreet and Members Joy over 1610m in the Edward Manifold at Flemington on October 6 after her Prelude loss to Lady Of Harrods.
"This is her first prep and at the moment I think she's doing phenomenally well," Corstens said.
"I reckon she's better this week than she was last week, so I couldn't be happier with her.
"I'll be very disappointed if she doesn't get a strong mile, especially at Caulfield. I think it will be a little bit easier than the mile at Flemington."
Commanding Jewel is a three-quarter sister to last year's Thousand Guineas winner Atlantic Jewel.
Sydney filly Jade Marauder was scratched from the Thousand Guineas within minutes of final acceptances as she was left in the race by mistake by trainer Chris Waller.
Waller intended to withdraw Jade Marauder using the RISA Trainer Assist program before the deadline on Monday but he made an error resulting in the filly being declared as an acceptor.