Sydney mares chase Valley success

[Wandering Eyes]

Sydney-based trainer Joe Pride has selected the Stocks Stakes as a suitable stakes target for Aberlour (NZ) (Mongolian Falcon), with the mare set to be among the interstate challengers in the Group 2 race at Moonee Valley on Friday night.

A winner of two Listed races in NZ as a three-year-old before joining the Pride stable, Aberlour has found some consistent form in her recent races in Sydney after notching her first Australian win in a Benchmark race at Randwick in July.

After a runner-up finish to subsequent G3 winner Oh Diamond Lil (So You Think) in late July, Aberlour then resumed from a let-up with a close third at Randwick earlier this month in Benchmark 94 grade after leading.

Pride felt Friday night’s G2 race for mares over 1500m at The Valley is a good option for the five-year-old, whose wins in the Listed Gore Guineas and Listed Southland Guineas across the Tasman in early 2024 came racing in the anti-clockwise direction.

“A few weeks ago, I just thought ‘I want to get her into a Stakes race because I think she’s going well’ and this race looked the most winnable of the races I had as options,” Pride said. “She’s going super.

“She ran a really nice second to David Pfieffer’s mare Oh Diamond Lil and she came out and won the Tibbie and there’s a little bit of form out of her last run as well.

“She’s actually won (three times) going Melbourne way in New Zealand, around tight, little tracks and I just think her pattern will really suit Moonee Valley.”

Pride said Aberlour arrived in Victoria on Wednesday in good order.

“She’ll run really well,” he said. “It took me a little while, but I’ve worked her out now and got her comfortable in her surroundings here.

“She’s come from Riverton in New Zealand at the bottom of the South Island and it just took a bit of an adjustment period for her. But since she’s been racing well, she’s held her form really consistently.”

Aberlour is not the only Sydney-based mare to head south for the Stocks Stakes, with Michael Freedman’s last-start Stakes winner Just Feelin’ Lucky (Justify) among the contenders, while Sydney’s premier trainer Chris Waller has also sent Molly Bloom (NZ) (Ace High) to his Flemington stable to continue her campaign in the race on her way to targets later in the Victorian Spring Carnival.

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