New Blue Diamond Stakes favourite Rubick will head to Melbourne at the end of the week to prepare for his next start in the Group 3 $150,000 Sportingbet Blue Diamond Prelude (C&G) (1100m) at Caulfield on February 8.
Rubick has overtook Earthquake, above, as the favourite for the G1 Blue Diamond Stakes. Photo by Steve Hart.
Rubick ($3.60) immediately replaced the Peter Snowden trained Earthquake ($4) as the favourite for the Group 1 $1m Sportingbet Blue Diamond Stakes (1200m) at Caulfield on February 22 after a dominant display on debut winning the $85,000 TAB iphone App Plate (1000m) at Randwick last Saturday.
The Gerald Ryan trained colt also ousted Earthquake ($5.50) from the top position in the market order for the Group 1 $3.5m Tooheys New Golden Slipper (1200m) at Rosehill on April 5 and is now the $4.50 favourite for the richest two year old race in the world.
The Rosehill trainer said that Rubick has pulled up well after his impressive Randwick display and would have a workout the Melbourne way of going later in the week before heading south top prepare for the Blue Diamond Stakes.
“He has pulled up well from his race and can only improve,” Ryan told AAP.
“He goes to Melbourne this week and will run in the Blue Diamond Prelude and the Blue Diamond two weeks later,” Ryan said.
“All going well, he comes back to Sydney and runs in the Todman Stakes then the Golden Slipper.
Rubick lived up to his pre-race hype following a seven and a quarter lengths Rosehill barrier trial win with his victory making everybody mark him down as the best two year old to race this season, including Gai Waterhouse.
Waterhouse saddled up the two placegetters Twirl and Valentia and told Ryan after the race that she had a very high opinion on of her two juveniles who were no match for the $1.30 favourite.
“After Rubick won on Saturday, Gai came up to me and said, I’ve got a really good opinion of my two horses (Twirl and Valentia), and you’ve just toyed with them’,” Ryan said.
While Ryan was reluctant to compare the 56.39s Rubick ran for the 1000m to other two year old wins of the season because they were run on different days and also Saturday’s two year old race was the only 1000m race on the day, Ryan was naturally impressed with the Encosta De Lago colt’s last 600m in 33.29s, the quickest on the day.
“You can’t compare time on different days, but you can compare times on the same day,” Ryan said.
“That was the only 1000m race on Saturday, but he was the only horse to break 34 seconds, and not only did he break 34 seconds, he smashed it. He ran 33.29 seconds easing down.”
