An incident-plagued Brisbane winter carnival concludes this Saturday with Sold for Song atop the betting for the feature race on the card, the Sunshine Coast Guineas (Race 5) over 1600m.
Kevin Kemp’s talented filly has only finished out of the placings once in her eight-start career and was an impressive winner of the Daybreak Lover Stakes at Eagle Farm last weekend, where she toppled the highly-rated Tsaritsa.
Winx powered to a memorable win in this race last year as part of an all-conquering 12 months on the track so the Toowoomba-based Kemp could be excused for dreaming big with Sold for Song, having declared her an ideal Stradbroke-type with a bit more maturity on her side.
With the track currently rated a soft 6, the filly boasts a perfect three-from-three record in that kind of going and has experience of the Sunny Coast circuit having trailed home Divine Centuri over five furlongs there in her first run this preparation.
Despite having our fingers burned a little last weekend, we’re happy to oppose her again on Saturday, with several other three-year-olds right in the mix.
Second pick Tivaci (pictured above) may have drawn to advantage in barrier two with local hoop Damian Browne, who landed a Group 1 with Miss Cover Girl recently, set to partner her once again having been aboard the horse at both of her Queensland starts to date.
Indeed, she’s been the best backed runner with us early in betting with her run in the Queensland Guineas, where she made up plenty of ground in arguably inferior going, an obvious pointer to her chances here.
The well-bred High Spirit also has form out of that race having battled away gamely behind Tsaritsa, with co-trainer Paul Snowden admitting that the horse was still a work in progress having tended to overrace during his early starts in Sydney.
Of the other contenders, our traders were expecting some improvement from Mr Individual, who comes into this with the benefit of a trial on the Gold Coast and has been set for this race.
While Kelly Doughty’s Time to Torque steps back up to the mile having landed some nice bets at Doomben a fortnight ago and is perhaps the best each-way hope.