Lightly raced filly Fangirl has vindicated Chris Waller’s decision to bypass the Flight Stakes with a valuable black-type victory in the Reginald Allen Quality.
Waller opted to miss the Group 1 when Fangirl drew wide and instead aimed her at Saturday’s Listed race.
The three-year-old underlined her quality with a fast-finishing win to emulate her dam Little Surfer Girl, who won the race for Waller and owners the Ingham family in 2009.
Little Surfer Girl claimed it at her sixth start while Fangirl achieved the breakthrough at start number four and after notching her maiden at Goulburn last month.
Fangirl ($3.90 fav) defeated stablemate Roots ($11), who came from last to grab second, with Victorian Decent Raine ($7.50) third.
“She has really started to emerge over the past few weeks and it was exciting to see her burst through the pack,” Waller said.
“She got a little bit lost when she hit the front. I think the second horse deserves a little bit of merit as well.
“It will be interesting where these types of fillies end up in the autumn. They’re the second-tier horses, as I would call them, but with six months on them you’ll really see them emerge and hopefully they’re running in the big races in the autumn.”
Waller said Fangirl would be nominated for next Saturday’s Bondi Stakes (1600m) at Randwick but was unlikely to back up with the stable keener to give her time to recover from her win and find a spring carnival target in Melbourne.
“She’ll be nominated for the Bondi but it’s probably come around a bit quick,” he said.
“We’ll consider a race at Flemington but there’s not a lot of her. I guess how she pulls up will be the key, but she’ll measure up in the autumn.”