Trainer Kris Lees will be chasing another Group 1 win with Le Romain who will be aimed towards the Group 1 $2m AAMI Stradbroke Handicap (1400m) at Eagle Farm on June 11.
Le Romain, blue and yellow colours, will be set for the Stradbroke Handicap at Eagle Farm. Photo by Steve Hart.
Le Romain was able to claim his Group 1 victory with an upset win in the $1m Girvan Waugh Randwick Guineas (1600m) at Randwick on March 5.
The Hard Spun gelding was sent out as a $21 chance but was able to upstage the $1.30 favourite Press Statement in recording a neck win in the three year old Autumn Carnival feature.
Lees was then in two minds if he should step Le Romain up the 2000m of the Group 1 $600,000 Sky Racing Rosehill Guineas at Rosehill two weeks later and after deciding to go around, he finished seventh to Victorian colt Tarzino.
The Brisbane Winter Carnival plan for Le Romain will see him run in the Listed $135,000 Queensland Day Stakes (1200m) at Doomben May 28 and then into the Stradbroke Handicap a fortnight later second up.
“He’s had a break and he’s back on the water walker now. The plan would be to run in the (Queensland Day Stakes) 1200m three-year-old race a fortnight before, and go into the Stradbroke second-up,” Lees told The Courier-Mail.
Lees had also planned to take Lucia Valentina to Brisbane for the Winter Carnival to run in the Group 1 $650,000 The Bundaberg Rum Doomben Cup (2000m) at Doomben on May 21 as her swan song before heading off to stud.
But her devastating win in the Group 1 $4m Longines Queen Elizabeth Stakes (2000m) at Randwick last Saturday has seen those plans change and the multiple Group 1 winning mare will now be set for a Spring Carnival campaign.
“Had she not won (the Queen Elizabeth), she would have been running in the Doomben Cup and then most likely go to stud after that, but we will have another shot at the spring now,” Lees said.
In early betting for the Stradbroke Handicap at Ladbrokes.com.au, Le Romain is marked at $21 with the Lee and Anthony Freedman trained Malaguerra heading the market order at $4.50 just ahead of The Queen Of The Turf Stakes winner Azkadellia at $5 and Black Heart Bart at $9.
