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Unbeaten diamond run to continue?

27/02/2015

The Robert Smerdon trained filly Fontiton will start a clear favourite in tomorrow's A$1 million G1 Blue Diamond Stakes at Caulfield where she attempts to maintain her unbeaten run and continue the sequence of unbeaten horses winning the prized two-year-old race.

The past five winners of the Blue Diamond Stakes went into the race unbeaten and the past three winners - Earthquake, Miracles Of Life and Samaready were fillies who'd won either the Preview or the Prelude in the lead-up. Fontiton has won both races in her preparation for Saturday's grand final.

The Turffontein filly showed blistering speed to win by six lengths on debut at Moonee Valley in October. However, underlining her versatility, she's been ridden off the pace in her Blue Diamond Fillies Preview and Prelude wins and on each occasion ran quicker time than the corresponding races for the colts and geldings.

Smerdon, whose one previous Blue Diamond success came with Let's Get Physical 30 years ago, is confident that Fontiton will be hard to beat on Saturday and is not discounting the possibility of her stablemate Thurlow also running extremely well.

“The quinella would be nice. We'd take that. Either way,” Smerdon said as he considered the advantage or otherwise of Fontiton drawing barrier one. “I think it's almost always a plus. People worry about getting cluttered up but it's the shortest way home and I remember the great (former jockey) Roy Higgins saying you always take gate one because they get progressively worse from there.”

“Fontiton's in good order. She went into the Prelude fit and well and we've been able to maintain her in good shape since. She hasn't gone backwards and with even luck, you'd expect her to go close.”

Smerdon said that the Blue Diamond was always a high pressure race. “We were mindful of that leading into this (race) and that's why we were happy to ride her off the speed at her past two runs. You've got to have that flexibility when it comes to the major races,” Smerdon said.

Jockey Mark Zahra, who's been aboard Fontiton in each of her three wins, is hoping he can add a first Diamond trophy to his mantlepiece. Zahra rode the 2011 Blue Diamond winner Sepoy in each of his first three wins but was replaced, in the Diamond, by Darley's number one jockey Kerrin McEvoy.

“I was disappointed at the time. It's always hard to watch someone else win on a horse you've done all the work on but I knew it was coming with Kerrin being the stable jockey. Hopefully it's my turn this weekend,” Zahra said.

Craig Williams, who also chases a first Blue Diamond success, takes the ride on Fontiton's stablemate Thurlow who should not be underestimated according to trainer Smerdon. “She didn't have much luck at her first start and has since won well twice in stakes races. She's push button, does everything right and can certainly run well,” he said.

Dwayne Dunn, who remarkably rode the Blue Diamond winner four years straight from 2005 and shares the record of most wins with the aforementioned Roy Higgins, rides the least experienced runner Lake Geneva who “could surprise”  according to co-trainer John Hawkes. “I suppose she's a little bit unexposed only having the one run, but it was a very good run in the Widden Stakes and probably the barrier beat her that day, to be fair. We're in with a shouting chance,” Hawkes said.

 

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