Already enjoying a tremendous start to the season, Gai Waterhouse and Adrian Bott will launch a three-pronged attack on the richest race of the Sydney summer.
The Tulloch Lodge training duo saddle up two last start winners in Riodini and Dajraan, along with the under-rated Surf Dancer in Saturday’s $2 million The Ingham (1600m) at Randwick.
Bott said the feature had been a long-range target for Riodini, who broke a near three-year winning drought when taking out The Gong at Kembla Grange last month, while Surf Dancer finished a fighting sixth in the same race.
“Riodini and Surf Dancer have both freshened up well since The Gong and they have come through it really well,” Bott said.
“It’s a race we always had in mind for Riodini and he seems right on track.”
Tim Clark has partnered Riodini at his past two starts and was also aboard Dajraan for his lead-up victory in the Festival Stakes.
However, having made an early-campaign commitment to ride Riodini in The Ingham, Clark will maintain his association with that gelding, while Rachel King goes on the stablemate.
“That was always the plan. He (Clark) wanted to stick with him from before The Gong, into The Gong, so he was happy to stay with him,” Bott said.
“The other horse had to win the other day to get himself into that position (to make the Ingham field), so it would have been hard to swap and change.”
The Waterhouse-Bott brigade have all drawn wide in the capacity field of 20 plus four reserves with Riodini in 17, Dajraan 19 and Surf Dancer gate 22.
Australian Bloodstock import Nugget, the pre-post favourite for The Ingham, is second emergency and will need two scratchings to elevate him into the field, but he retains his place at the top of betting as a $4 elect.
He has also been paid up for a benchmark 88 race on the support program.
Waterhouse and Bott are coming off a prosperous spring carnival in which their wins included the Group 1 Underwood Stakes and Champions Mile with Alligator Blood, along with the $1 million The Gong with Riodini.
The pair had produced 28 winners in NSW this season prior to Wednesday’s midweek meeting at Warwick Farm, 21 of them in town.