Blinkers back on in-form Osmose in Queen Of The Turf Stakes

It has taken former French mare Osmose nine starts to win a race in Australia but now that she has found her best form, jockey Tim Clark expects her to hold it.

A last start winner of the Epona Stakes (1900m), Osmose will drop back to 1600m for Saturday’s Queen Of The Turf Stakes at Randwick in search of her first Group 1 title.

Clark says the Tulloch Lodge five-year-old is the best she has been since arriving in Australia last year and her record could read better with a little luck.

“She has missed a few times where she has just been a bit unlucky through circumstance,” Clark said.,

“She probably should have won a race in Queensland through the winter and narrowly missed behind Deny Knowledge in the Matriarch (Stakes).

“She was knocking on the door, even first-up she just needed to build momentum a bit sooner and she wins.

“She is going better now than she has gone in her previous two preps.

“She looks better, she’s stronger and she is working fantastic.”

Osmose goes into Saturday’s race with a three-week break between runs but she does need to overcome a distance drop back to a mile.

Trainers Gai Waterhouse and Adrian Bott have reapplied blinkers for that purpose and Clark believes they will have the desired effect.

“I think because she is early on in her preparation, she will (handle it). Maybe if she was a bit later on in her prep she might struggle,” he said.

“She was only second-up the other day and she is thriving at the moment too, so I think back to the mile with the blinkers on is going to be a good recipe for her.”

Waterhouse and Bott will also start Surround Stakes winner Tropical Squall after electing not to run her against the open class horses in last weekend’s Doncaster Mile (1600m).

Bott revealed they also toyed with extending her to a middle-distance in the Vinery Stud Stakes two weeks ago before settling on the Queen Of The Turf as the most suitable option.

“We were thinking about going towards the Vinery over 2000 metres and there was the option to run in the Doncaster with the light weight, but there was plenty of depth to that field,” Bott said.

“We thought sticking to the mares at this time of her career is the right thing to do, and also keeping her at the mile.

“She’s in good shape.”

Tropical Squall will be striving to become the tenth three-year-old to win the Queen Of The Turf Stakes in the past 45 years, the most recent being Alizee in 2018.

Waterhouse is the most successful trainer with seven wins, most recently in 2020 with Con Te Partiro, who she prepared in combination with Bott.