Flemington specialist Vain Queen will miss Saturday’s Group 1 $500,000 Black Caviar Lightning (1000m) at Flemington and be kept for the Oakleigh Plate at Caulfield the following week.
Vain Queen will bypass the Black Caviar Lightning and head to the Oakleigh Plate at Caulfield. Photo by Sarah Ebbett.
Even though Vain Queen has won down the Flemington straight on four occasions trainer John Sadler has elected to let the Artie Schiller mare make her Group 1 debut in the $400,000 Oakleigh Plate (1100m).
Vain Queen was among the Black Caviar Lightning nominations which included the world’s equal number one sprinter Lankan Rupee, Group 1 winners Brazen Beau and Tiger Tees and undefeated front runner Deep Field.
“Realistically she was a chance to run third or fourth in the Lightning and we just thought we might take her where she has more of a winning chance,” Sadler told Racing.com.
“Two of the best sprinters in the land (Lankan Rupee and Deep Field) are running in the Lightning and to try and take them on at weight for age is a bit of a task.”
The Black Caviar Lightning is run at weight for age while Vain Queen will be better suited under handicap conditions in the Oakleigh Plate.
“She’s going to be on the minimum or I’d imagine she’d be on the minimum in the Oakleigh Plate and I think we should try her at handicap conditions first,” Sadler said.
While Vain Queen is a four time Flemington winner she has also won at Caulfield and Sadler can see no problem in going back there.
“She has won at Caulfield once but one of her best runs was at Caulfield where she should have won there one day in a Group 3, she had no luck, Craig Williams rode her but I don’t think the course is a problem,” Sadler said.
Sadler said that in-form jockey Damian Lane has been booked to ride Vain Queen in the Oakleigh Plate.
A good performance in the Oakleigh Plate could see Vain Queen return to Flemington for the Group 1 $1m Lexus Newmarket Handicap (1200m) on March 14.
“Of course she is four-for-five down the straight so you’d like to run there at some stage but we’d have to see how she comes through,” Sadler said.
“How she goes in the Oakleigh Plate and how she comes through it and where she goes from there, it could even be the William Reid.”
