Gai Waterhouse’s chances of winning a fourth Golden Slipper came a step closer this morning when her classy two year old Pierro put himself back into the mix.
Pierro showed the ever confident Waterhouse that he was ready to be included in her Golden Slipper hopes with a very impressive barrier trial at Rosehill today.
The Lonhro colt will join Waterhouse’s other major Tullock Lodge contenders Raceway, Driefontein and No Looking Back in vying for the major prize of the Group 1 $3.5m AAMI Golden Slipper (1200m) to be run at Rosehill on April 7.
Ridden by stable jockey Nash Rawiller, Pierro scored an easy trial win over the Tim Martin trained Lightning Drew over 900m in smart time.
Waterhouse declared that Pierro would be winning the Slipper after his impressive debut win in the listed Breeders Plate (1000m) at Randwick, but that was back in October last year.
“You just saw the Golden Slipper winner,” she said after his narrow win.
“The improvement from his trial would be six lengths. If he can improve that much in 12 days what can he do in the next six months.”
Since then the Randwick trainer has produced several other likely Slipper contenders including Raceway who was a four length winner in the Warwick Farm 100 Club 2yo Plate (1000m) and the $2m BMW Magic Million 2yo Classic quinella of Driefontein and No Looking Back.
Pierro is set to resume racing in the Group 2 $200,000 Silver Slipper Stakes at Rosehill on March 3 on his way to the Golden Slipper.
Impressive Warwick Farm winner Raceway will line up again in the Listed $100,000 Canonbury Stakes (1100m) at Warwick Farm on Saturday week with Hugh Bowman retaining the ride over stable jockey Rawiller who has elected to ride Foxwedge in the Group 1 $500,000 Coolmore Lightning Stakes (1000m) at Flemington on the same day.
The Rosehill trials also produced some other high profile Autumn contenders including the Peter Snowden trained Doomben 10,000 winner Beaded, outstanding three year old Manawanui and the Peter Moody trained Moment Of Change, all of whom were winners.
