The richest race meeting on the Australian racing calendar and Golden Slipper day has rewarded Darren Beadman.
The Hall Of Fame jockey whose career ended last year after a barrier trial fall in Hong Kong reckons the world’s richest juvenile thoroughbred race is all but over.
“Overreach will win the Golden Slipper,” Beadman said shortly after spending a day out at the William Inglis Sale ring at Newmarket in Sydney.
“Take her out of this Golden Slipper and you could run the race 10 times and come up with 10 different winners.
“Outside her there is no standout. She has won at the track and it’s a big plus. The day she won, she hit the line like she was a four or five-year-old, she went to the line without wavering, attacked the line like a caged lion.
“She is trained by Gai Waterhouse, she knows how to win a Golden Slipper, she has won four and Overreach has drawn barrier one.”
What about the 21-year-old Tom Berry who rides Overreach which dominates betting?
“Tomorrow is the day he has to stand up and be counted,” Beadman said.
“These are the races that launch your career. Races like the Golden Slipper, the Melbourne and Caulfield Cup, the Cox Plate, are the races.
“Yes, he is up there, winning the Magic Millions a couple of times but there is another plus. He has been with Gai for a couple of years, he knows what she expects.
“He is on a filly where he will be able to dictate. She jumps, settles underneath the jockey and we know she quickens, quickens real fast.
“It is a pretty good Golden Slipper formula.”
Beadman and his onetime boss, former Woodlands Stud head-trainer John Hawkes, spent Friday at the William Inglis complex inspecting yearlings set to go under the hammer at next week’s Easter Yearling Sale.
“I reckon Hawksey and the team can win the BMW with Maluckyday,” Beadman said.
The BMW maybe on the Golden Slipper undercard but it is regarded as the ultimate weight-for-age staying test in Australasia.
“He does get through the wet, he did run second in a Melbourne Cup on a soft track,” Beadman said.
“We know he has had his injuries, sickness, but there was light at the end of the tunnel when he finished third in the Ranvet Stakes at Rosehill a fortnight ago.
“If there was ever a horse looking for 2400m, he is the one.”
The Golden Slipper and BMW are both group 1 events and so are the Queen Of The Turf Stakes and George Ryder Stakes. Beadman has won each multiple times.
“I know Singo [John Singleton] will give me a spray next time he sees me, might even ring, but I reckon Red Tracer can beat More Joyous in the Queen Of The Turf,”Beadman said.
“Singo’s mare [More Joyous] is outstanding but on a wet track I reckon Red Tracer is the way to go.
“As for the George Ryder, well, there are three certainties in life, death, tax and Pierro winning the George Ryder,”
By Craig Young
