Trainer Brett Scott has no worries about legging up claiming apprentice Michael Dee on to Cornonation Shallan in the Listed $150,000 VRC-CRV Winter Championship Series Final (1600m) at Flemington on Saturday.
Apprentice Michael Dee will team up again with Coronation Shallan in the Winter Championship Series Final at Flemington. Photo by Adrienne Bicknell.
Dee has created quite an impression in Victoria since arriving from New Zealand early in the year and Scott is happy to team up again with the youngster after he partnered Coronation Shallan to a narrow win in the $40,000 Porter Plant Winter Championship Series Heat 7 (1600m) at Ballarat on July 1.
The Winter Championship Series Final in a non-claiming race therefore Dee is ineligible to use his 2kg metropolitan claim and will have to ride against the senior riders on equal terms.
“I was happy to put him on in a non-claiming race at Ballarat and I’m happy to have him on tomorrow,” Scott told AAP.
“We have the minimum of 54 kilos which he rides comfortably and a lot of the seniors at this time of the year don’t really do 54 that well.”
Scott has been impressed with Dee since he arrived in Australia and the promising young rider has won thirty-three races in Victoria this season, twenty-one of them on the metropolitan tracks.
“Michael has only had a couple of rides for me but I sort of picked him out fairly early. He’s a potential star in the making I think,” Scott said.
“He’s just got all the attributes for a really good jockey. For an apprentice he rides with an older head and he’s got the skills to go with it.
Scott, a former top line jumps jockey, was forced out of the saddle five years ago through injury and has been training for the last three years.
The Mornington trainer rates Coronation Shallan the best horse to come through his stable to date and is giving the five year old mare a great chance to deliver him his first Stakes winner at Flemington on Saturday.
“I’ve won a couple of South Australian Grand National Hurdles and several metropolitan races but she’s been my best horse to date,” Scott said.
“Obviously it’s not going to be easy from the wide barrier. It just depends how the track is playing at that time of the day too.
“With the forecast of rain, a wide gate might not be such a bad thing by the second last race.”
Coronation Shallan is currently listed at $18 for the Winter Championship Series Final with Ladbrokes.com.au.
Sir Andrew from the Lee and Shannon Hope stable heads the market order at $4 just ahead of the Robert Smerdon trained Mr Utopia at $4.20 with Good Value on the next line of betting at $8.50 in front of Amovatio and Tried And Tired both at $9.
