Gai Waterhouse has Diamond Drille, Cosmic Endeavour and Amanpour in the 2015 Queen Of The Turf Stakes field and the leading Sydney trainer is typically confident about her chances in the Group 1 event at Royal Randwick on Saturday.
Cosmic Endeavour is one of three Gai Waterhouse-trained runners in the 2015 Queen Of The Turf Stakes field. Photo by: Steve Hart
Cosmic Endeavour and Diamond Drille will both be backing up from the Group 1 Doncaster Mile (1600m) at Royal Randwick on Monday and Waterhouse told Racing Ahead that she is happy with the way that both mares came out of the race, but admits that it is far from ideal the duo’s recovery time was shortened by two days due to the postponement of the opening days of The Championships.
Both Cosmic Endeavour and Diamond Drille finished in the second half of the Doncaster Mile field, but Waterhouse is still confident that they can fight out the finish in the 2015 Queen Of The Turf Stakes.
“I think they can run one, two, three and I’m not putting them in any particular order,” Waterhouse said.
“The three mares are unbelievably well, two of which are backing up from the Doncaster.
“Cosmic Endeavour ran a very eye catching race in the Doncaster and Diamond Drille got back to far and she has her chance to make amends tomorrow and defend her title.”
Progressive mare Amanpour rounds out the Waterhouse-trained trio in the 2015 Queen Of The Turf Stakes field and she will be returning to Group 1 level for the first time since she finished 12th behind Rising Romance in the Group 1 Australian Oaks (2400m) at Royal Randwick last year.
The Northern Meteor mare started her autumn campaign with an unlucky sixth in the Group 3 Wenona Girl Quality (1200m) at Royal Randwick on March 7 and she stamped herself as a Queen Of The Turf Stakes contender when she finished second behind Catkins in the Group 2 Emancipation Stakes (1500m) at Rosehill Gardens on March 28.
Waterhouse admits that Amanpour is deserving of being considered her least likely winning chance in the Queen Of The Turf Stakes, but she said she can’t knock the four-year-old heading into the $1 million event.
“Amanpour is probably going to be the longest price of all of them, but I am extremely pleased with this mare and I am really happy with her,” Waterhouse said.
Cosmic Endeavour has been backed into 2015 Queen Of The Turf Stakes odds of $17 and is the most fancied of the Waterhouse runners from Diamond Drille ($18) and Amanpour ($31).
