Gerald Ryan has been a horseman all his life and despite the advances in technology, he says one thing has not changed.
While computers can measure all sorts of things, including a thoroughbred’s heart rate and aerobic capacity, there is also an intrinsic element to assessing a horse and it is for that reason Ryan doesn’t weigh his gallopers.
“I used to weigh them a long time ago, but you start training them off the scales and not off your eye,” Ryan said.
“And I think the best judge is your eye.”
Ryan’s eye is telling him that three-year-old Mallory has returned in great order ahead of her first-up assignment in Saturday’s Silver Shadow Stakes (1200m) at Randwick.
She has grown in height and muscled up and tends to do better in a stable environment than in a paddock.
“She didn’t come in carrying huge weight and (Arrowfield Stud’s) Paul Messara, because he spelled her and pre-trained her, he was a bit worried about it,” Ryan said.
“But I said, ‘don’t worry about it, each preparation she’s had, she’s done better in work than what she’s done out of work’.”
Mallory competed just four times as a juvenile, winning the Group 3 Widden Stakes and placing in the Gimcrack and Sweet Embrace Stakes before finishing a luckless ninth in the Golden Slipper when she suffered significant interference midrace.
She lines up in an intriguing renewal of the Silver Shadow, which has attracted the cream of Sydney’s juvenile fillies from the autumn led by Four Moves Ahead, who was the first of her sex home in the Golden Slipper.
While some of the better youngsters fail to train on as older horses, Ryan has always felt Mallory would improve at three and he has seen nothing to change his mind.
“She wasn’t a precocious, running two-year-old. She always gave the impression she’d get better as she got older,” Ryan said.
“That’s why we were only very light on her as a two-year-old.”
The Silver Shadow is the first leg in the four-race Princess Series, a traditional spring pathway for Sydney’s best three-year-old fillies.
She has barrier seven in Saturday’s field of 12 and Ryan says the plan will be to ride her quietly, a pattern she established in the autumn.
“Even though she’s shown more speed this time in than she did last time, I’m not going to be changing her racing pattern in this race,” Ryan said.
“She will just begin and find her feet, let the speed go and try to have the last crack at them.”
“She’s forward enough and fresh enough if she’s good enough.”
Article from JustHorseRacing.com.au