Don’t Doubt Marley is out to Thousand Guineas odds of $41, but trainer Robbie Griffiths is hopeful that the promising filly can return to a semblance of his best form in the Group 1 event at Caulfield tomorrow.
Chris Parnham has been booked to ride Don’t Doubt Marley in the 2015 Thousand Guineas. Photo by: Adrienne Bicknell
Don’t Doubt Marley started her racing career with two impressive wins at Geelong and Sale and she was more than competitive in the Group 3 Quezette Stakes (1100m) at Caulfield on August 15 and the Listed Atlantic Jewel Stakes (1200m) at Moonee Valley on September 5, but she failed to fire in the Group 2 Thousand Guineas Prelude (1400m) at Caulfield on September 26 and did not beat a horse home.
Griffiths admits that Don’t Doubt Marley was very poor in the Thousand Guineas Prelude, but he told Racing Ahead that he has elected to remove the tongue tie from the Not A Single Doubt filly and he is optimistic that she will be competitive in the 2015 Thousand Guineas.
“Everything went wrong, but I still think it was an average run,” Griffiths said.
“She had a tongue tie on because she had been playing with it in training, but she raced poorly with it so we will be taking it off.
“We have taken her back to where she was prior when he runs were good; she had two wins in the off-season, a good fourth at Caulfield and fifth at Moonee Valley.
“You don’t like going into a grand final off a negative run, but because she it is Group 1, she has worked good and maintained the same mannerisms in training we have elected to roll the dice to give her a chance at Group 1 and hope we can see the best of her.
“Her runs at Caulfield and Moonee Valley were good enough to say that she could measure up.”
Don’t Doubt Marley was allocated barrier 8 when the 2015 Thousand Guineas barrier draw was conducted earlier in the week and Griffiths admits that he has no idea where the three-year-old will end up in the run.
The filly has shown a degree of tactical versatility during her racing career to date and Griffiths said that he will leave the tactics up to jockey Chris Parnham.
“I am going to leave it up to Chris because drawing the eight of 11 is a little bit tricky,” Griffiths said.
“I will leave it up to how she steps out of the stalls and what he thinks about the pace.
“Last time we tried to get into a good spot and all the pace changed around us and we ended up in a bad spot, so I think that I will just leave it to Chris.”
Don’t Doubt Marley is the extreme outsider of the 2015 Thousand Guineas betting market with Ladbrokes, while Pasadena Girl ($4.40) remains a clear favourite from Badawiya ($5) and Stay With Me ($5).
