2YO trials show Gai Waterhouse will be a potent force this season

No trainer has won the Golden Slipper more times than Gai Waterhouse and the recently anointed Hall of Fame legend showed on Monday that she will be a potent force in juvenile races this season.

Waterhouse and her training partner Adrian Bott won seven of the 11 trials in which they were represented at Randwick’s Kensington track, which hosted New South Wales’ first two-year-old trials of the season.

The tone for the day was set in Trail 1 when Written Tycoon colt Straight Charge ran clearly the fastest time of the session, 48.46 seconds, which was followed by a win to stablemate Lady Of Camelot.

Also by Written Tycoon, Lady Of Camelot is a half-sister to last year’s Gimcrack Stakes winner Platinum Jubilee and although she ran 49.04 seconds, her winning margin was almost four lengths.

“It’d be nice to repeat the performance if we can, she’s bred to be able to do that, as Platinum Jubilee and a few others in the family have certainly shown,” Bott said.

“She’s still got a few things to learn, as we saw today, but I think the natural ability is well and truly there and certainly the natural speed.”

Seven-time Slipper winner Waterhouse and Bott also won with one of the three seven-figure yearlings in action, Zoustar colt Espionage – a $1 million Magic Millions youngster – who edged out $1.6m yearling Bodyguard in 49.59secs in Trial 7.

The first four trials were run over 850m, trials five to eight were over 845m with the final four trials over 843m.

Waterhouse and Bott’s other winners were Capitalist filly Celestial Bling (49.59secs, Trial 4), Lady Tassort, a daughter of first-season sire Tassort who won Trial 6 in 48.98secs, Zoustar filly Runaway Vixen (50.48secs, Trial 8) and Gerringong (49.46secs, Trial 10), a daughter of Blue Point.

While Waterhouse and Bott dominated in terms of winners, the Ciaron Maher and David Eustace-trained Scampi was the day’s standout performer in the eyes of many.

Another by Darley freshman sire Blue Point, out of Sistonic, who is a close relation to Black Caviar, Scampi won Trial 9 by more than 2-1/2 lengths in 49.36secs under little urging from jockey Jason Collett in what was an impressive audition for the Breeders’ Plate (1000m) at Randwick on September 30.

“Ciaron said, ‘don’t go too quick’,” Collett said. “Obviously there’s stable confidence that he’s got natural ability and it’s just a case of making sure we can get him there in a week-and-a-half, two weeks.”

The days other winners were Peter and Paul Snowden’s Pierata colt Fearless (49.69secs, Trial 3), his Snitzel stablemate Volatile (49.32secs, Trial 11), the Michael Freedman-trained Highness (49.29secs, Trial 5), who is also by Snitzel, and Invincible Madison (49.55secs, Trial 12).

The daughter of I Am Invincible, who is trained by the Snowdens, was a $1.2m purchase at the Magic Millions.