Anthony Cummings’ promising filly Stray makes strong claims for the Autumn carnival after returning with a bang to breakthrough at Randwick-Kensington on Wednesday.
After what trainer Anthony Cummings described as a luckless debut preparation, the exciting two-year-old has returned with a bang to take out the second event at Randwick-Kensington on Wednesday.
In a debut campaign that included runs in the Listed Dulcify Stakes, Group 3 Gloaming Stakes and a culminating midfield finish in the Group 1 Flight Stakes, the daughter of Thunder Fantasy returned a well-supported favourite ($3.20) over the 1400m.
Having not shown a great deal of early speed in her sole lead-up trial, the two-year-old bounced away sharply from her low draw under the riding of Jason Collett, before taking a sit just behind the leaders upon settling.
Travelling in a similar spot throughout and cruising along, Collett shifted his mount out three-wide rounding the home turn.
Although taking a few strides to balance up, the filly promptly put pay to her rivals and took over passing the 300m.
Having them beat by the 200m marker, Stray did no such thing as her namesake implies; impressively shifting through her gears to career further away from her challengers.
Scoring by just under three lengths (2.68L) on the line, Cummings was thrilled with the filly’s return and is optimistic she can progress and threaten in the Autumn.
“She’s very good, it’s hard to put it in any other terms,” Cummings said.
“She was almost arrogant there in the finish and she’s still got a lot of improvement left in her.
“She had no luck at all (debut preparation) – barriers and different things. She should’ve beaten Profondo first-up which would’ve been good form leading into anything as the carnival unfolded.
“I think the things we are looking at for this preparation are well within her reach.”
Having ridden Stray in her Randwick trial placing, Collett was full of confidence going into the first-up assignment.
“We were pretty confident coming into today in this sort of field that she should be able to put them away,” Collett said.
“It’s easy when they hit the front like that that easy in the straight and you know you’ve still got a fair bit more in the tank, so yeah in some ways it was an arrogant win.”
In the following event Cummings and Collett looked set to record a race-to-race double with three-year-old Zoustar filly Cap Estel, that was before ex-Victorian Score launched late down the outside to snatch victory from the pair, making it a winning debut under new trainer Annabel Neasham.