Ben Smith Is Spring Dreaming

She was the filly that came from nowhere to grab a priceless juvenile Group 1, but this spring Ben Smith has his sights on the ultimate upset with El Dorado Dreaming – in the Cox Plate.

Some say he’s dreaming and Smith agrees to a point. But then he thinks again of the filly that will turn three in just two weeks and he can’t help but think what a spring she may have in front of her.

“She’s brilliant,” Smith proudly assessed his filly on Monday evening. “She’s impressed me the most out of anything that I’ve got here. She’s come back in terrific order – a much more mature and developed horse.”

Underlining his comments it the fact that Smith also trains one of the fastest horses in the land in The Everest candidate In Her Time, who has also returned to his Newcastle stables ready for the preparation of her career.

Smith said he knows what he’ll get with the ultra-consistent In Her Time: “‘I actually pulled a blood off her (Monday) and I’d say it’s the best it’s ever been,” Smith said.

“It’s only the early stages. She’s only trotting and cantering at the moment but by the end of the week we’ll start a little pace work with her. She’s lovely and free in her action.

“She’s the same old horse that just keeps turning up. She’s got a nice bit of condition on her and looks really well.”

Smith, however, can’t put a ceiling on what El Dorado Dreaming could achieve this spring and so has set her a campaign that, if even partly successful, will reap a fortune for connections and add handsomely to the filly’s value.

El Dorado Dreaming has came a long way in a short time.

By bargain stallion Ilovethiscity (who stands for a fee of just $6600), the filly came off a debut defeat at Tamworth in October and beaten autumn efforts in maidens at Warwick Farm and Newcastle to snare the G1 ATC Sires’ Produce Stakes at Randwick at the odds of $61 before rattling home late for third in the G1 Champagne Stakes.

Smith suspected the filly was achieving despite herself.

“As a two-year-old, she still did a few little things wrong but was just starting to put it together at the end of the prep,” Smith explained. “The way she’s come back in, she’s more physically developed but mentally, she’s like a four or five-year-old mare the way she carries herself around the stable.

“Before, she was always a little hot in her work and have a bit of a play and not concentrate and switch on and off. But this time she’s all business.”

El Dorado Dreaming still has a way to go before she resumes though.

“She’s started a bit of pacework and we’ve got her down to trial on the 20th of August,” Smith said.

“We’ll have two runs in Sydney before coming to Melbourne – the Tea Rose (Stakes) over 1400 metres and then the Flight Stakes (1600m) and then three weeks to the Thousand Guineas at Caulfield.

“Then I think it’s a fortnight – look it’s ambitious – but if she comes up, we’ll press to the Cox Plate with her and then to the Oaks.

“We’ll be realistic about a Cox Plate. On the same day is the Vase against the (three-year-old) boys and we can go to that instead if we’ve got doubts about the Cox Plate.”

In Her Time has two grand finals for the spring – The Everest in October and the Darley Classic down the Flemington straight in November.

“She’ll have a trial at the end of August or early September and an exhibition gallop before the Premiere (Stakes at Randwick on September 29),” he said.

– racing.com

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