Following the third declarations for Group 1 $1.5m Ladbrokes Blue Diamond Stakes (1200m) at Caulfield on February 27, seventy-one two year olds remain in contention.
Extreme Choice, above, is the favourite for the Blue Diamond Stakes at Caulfield after 3rd declarations. Photo by Steve Hart.
Eighteen of those youngsters will be going around at Caulfield on Saturday, including the favourite, Extreme Choice, who is the short priced favourite for the Group 3 $150,000 Chairman’s Stakes (1000m).
Extreme Choice is one of ten two year olds trainer Mick Price has left in the Blue Diamond Stakes and the Not A Single Doubt colt can cement his spot at the top of the market order at Ladbrokes.com.au with a win on Saturday.
Extreme Choice is currently the $6 favourite ahead of the John O’Shea trained Calliope at $8 and the Team Snowden’s colt Defcon at $9.
Price also has one of the other tops chances, Flying Artie who is marked at $10 and is due to return to the racetrack on Saturday week in the Group 3 $200,000 Blue Diamond Prelude (C&G) (1100m) at Caulfield.
The Lindsay Park training team of David Hayes and Tom Dabernig also have ten two year olds left in the Blue Diamond Stakes with two of them, Highland Beat and Dam Ready set to go around in the Chairman’s Stakes.
The Godolphin Team, prepared by John O’Shea, still have hopes for Calliope and Cohesion.
Cohesion put himself into content with a comfortable win in the Listed $150,000 Ladbrokes Blue Diamond Preview (C&G) (1000m) at Caulfield on January 26 while Calliope is due to return to racetrack next week after she had a break following her win in the Listed $150,000 Gimcrack Stakes (1000m) at Randwick during the Spring Carnival.
The Peter and Paul Snowden training partnership has three youngster still in contention, Quick Feet, Gravitate and third favourite Defcon.
Defcon went to the races for the first time last Saturday with a huge wrap on him but after hitting the front at the 100m, faded to run second to Tessera in the Group 3 $150,000 Canonbury Stakes (1100m) at Rosehill.
Blue Diamond Stakes early market order at Ladbrokes.com.au: $6 Extreme Choice, $8 Calliope, $9 Defcon, $10 Flying Artie, $15 Cohesion, Weatherly, Sword Of Light and Zamzam, $17 Hell Of An Effort, Concealer, Miss Nymeria, $21 El Venetian, Emphatically and Power Trip.
