Gary Portelli’s quest for back-to-back Golden Slippers will begin this weekend when the first of the new-season two-year-olds go on show at Randwick.
Portelli will start Flying Trapeze in the Breeders’ Plate (1000m) and Queen Of The Mile in the Gimcrack Stakes (1000m), the two races marking the official start of the juvenile season in Sydney.
The Warwick Farm horseman captured last year’s Breeders’ Plate with Sejardan and says Flying Trapeze, a son of first season sire Trapeze Artist and an $85,000 Magic Millions purchase, is a no-nonsense horse with natural talent.
The colt led his trial from an outside gate and lengthened when Jason Collett asked for an effort in the straight, holding on to defeat Empire Of Japan, who will be among his Breeders’ Plate rivals.
“He is well educated, there are no tricks to him, he jumps, he runs, he does everything right,” Portelli said.
“He was slightly underdone for the trial, which is the way I have them at the official trials. I use the trials to bring their fitness up.
“And first time away from home ever, he had never galloped on another track other than Warwick Farm, so you’ve got to take that into consideration. All the Randwick horses dominate those trials every year because that’s where they’re trained.”
Queen Of The Mile finished third to Perfect Proposal in her 850m heat, which was run in the fastest time of the session, and blinkers go on for Saturday.
“She just did a couple of little things wrong, but they can be rectified with a set of blinkers I’m sure, and she’d be an outsider’s chance,” Portelli said.
Despite Portelli’s two Golden Slipper winners, Fireburn (2022) and She Will Reign (2017), both being fillies, neither raced until Christmas and the trainer is yet to taste success in a Gimcrack Stakes.
Regardless of whether that statistic changes on Saturday, he is confident he has another nice group of two-year-olds on his books this season.
“I’ve got a really good bunch of babies, but I haven’t really nailed them down yet,” he said.
“This was the first crew we put through, the rest are coming through now, so in the next month we’ll know what we’ve got.”