Today’s impressive Rosehill two year old winner Inner Circle has the potential to be the best of the juveniles coming out of the powerful Godolphin stable but isn’t in the mix for the Group 1 $3.5m Tooheys New Golden Slipper (1200m) at Rosehill on March 21.

Trainer John O’Shea, above, is predicting a bright future for Rosehill winner Inner Circle. Photo by Daniel Costello.

Trainer John O’Shea has produced fourteen two year old winners this season with several heading towards the Golden Slipper but is predicting that Inner Circle will be the pick of the crop in their three year old season.

“I won’t be surprised if in 12 months time he ends up the pick of them,” O’Shea said.

“We didn’t put him in the Slipper because mentally I think he’ll be much better later on.

If O’Shea is to continue with an Autumn Carnival campaign with Inner Circle, he will go to the Group 2 $175,000 Pago Pago Stakes (1200m) at Rosehill on March 14 and then possibly a start in the Group 1 $1m ATC Sires Produce Stakes (1400m) at Randwick three weeks later.

“We will probably just go to the Pago Pago then see what happens. If we want to run him again after that we will,” O’Shea said.

O’Shea has already earmarked the 2015 Group 1 $1m Golden Rose Stakes (1400m) at Rosehill in September as Inner Circle’s Spring Carnival target.

Inner Circle, a colt by Street Cry out of the Group 1 winning mare Camarilla, was having his first start today and led all of the way for James McDonald to win by almost two lengths as the $1.70 odds on favourite.

Inner Circle is a half-brother to the four times Group 1 winning filly Guelph who replicated her dam’s win in the 2013 Sires Produce Stakes. Camarilla won the same race in 2007.

Guelph was crowned the best two year old of the year in 2013 for her wins in the Sires Produce Stakes and in the Group 1 $400,000 Moet & Chandon Champagne Stakes (1600m) at Randwick.

Her other Group 1 wins were as a three year old in the $400,000 Flight Stakes (1600m) at Randwick and the $500,000 Thousand Guineas (1600m) at Caulfield during the 2013 Spring Carnival.