Exciting filly Verry Elleegant’s impressive victory in Saturday’s Ethereal Stakes (2000m) firmed her into favouritism for next month’s G1 VRC Oaks (2500m) and jockey John Allen has allayed any fears she’ll struggle stepping out in trip for the $1 million classic.
Less than 24 hours after Allen piloted the New Zealand import to victory at Caulfield, he joined Racing.com’s The Wrap Sunday Edition and confirmed connections were leaning towards running in the Oaks without another lead-up.
“Look that’s the question, she’s a very lightly-framed mare, so you might be a bit worried if she had a run prior to the Oaks that it just might take it out of her, I’m sure Darren and the team will make a decision on that,” Allen said.
“The talk after the race I thought they were thinking of nearly going directly to the Oaks.
“She has a lot of ability, she’s still a bit raw, not doing everything right but has a lot of potential there.
“I don’t think the 2500m will be any issue.”
Allen confirmed that not only did the daughter of Zed run strongly through the line, but she was again hard to pull up after the run.
“Once I passed the winning post I was around to the 1400m mark before I pulled her up again,” he said.
“Just when you go to start pulling her up she just keeps going, so she has a very big engine.
“She’s done very little work actually (since arriving in Weir’s stable earlier this spring), from her last run all she’s done is have an easy 800m gallop last Monday morning so you’d imagine she’d do nothing but improve into the Oaks.”
Verry Elleegant’s stablemate Thousand Guineas-winner Amphitrite is on the second line of betting for the VRC Oaks and Allen said even with both stepping up in distance he’d still prefer to ride Verry Elleegant.
But he’s hopeful the two will take different paths this spring giving him a chance to ride both fillies.
“Hopefully she (Amphitrite) might go to the Myer Classic, I’m trying to convince Darren to run her there,” he said.
The Irish hoop rode Verry Elleegant to victory at 55kg, and confirmed a lot of effort has gone into keeping his weight at that level.
“I worked on it over the last couple of years but look when you’re getting opportunities to ride mares like Verry Elleegant it’s definitely worth the hard work,” he said.
Allen also partnered three-year-old colt Extra Brut to a sixth placing in the Ladbrokes Classic (2000m) and said that while he was disappointed in the Domesday colt’s run, he did have excuses and remains on a Derby path.
“He was definitely a little big disappointing,” he said.
“A little excuse is he’s a good mover and he’d have liked to be on top of the ground, but you would have liked to see him run through the line stronger.
“I’m wanting to stick with him, hopefully if we can get back on a firmer track he’ll run better.”
– racing.com
