Build-Up to Magic Millions Meet Continues

A chance glance at a striking filly by the current leading first season sire Better Than Ready could lead to brash Queanbeyan trainer Joe Cleary having a runner in next month's Magic Millions 2-year-old Classic. 

Girls Are Ready was snapped up by her trainer for just AUS$30,000 (USs$23,748) at this year's Magic Millions Yearling Sale and the 2-year-old will back up at Warwick Farm Dec. 22 in an attempt to almost certainly guarantee herself a place in the $2 million Gold Coast race Jan. 12. 

One of six winners for the Lyndhurst Studbased Better Than Ready, the filly impressed with a strong closing one and three-quarter length victory at Canterbury on Friday night, an effort that confirmed Cleary's January plan for Girls Are Ready.

"The feed bin has told us she is right to go again. After her Canberra run she had five days in the paddock, so she had already had one little let-up going into Friday night and she will have five days again after Saturday going into the Magic Millions," Cleary told ANZ Bloodstock News. 

Girls Are Ready ran third to Aeecee Vinco at Canberra on her first start and will use the $125,000 Warwick Farm race, to be run over 1200 meters (about six furlongs), as a way of securing a start in the Magic Millions 2-year-old Classic. The Sydney contest yesterday received eight nominations including first starters from the Peter and Paul Snowden stable, James Cummings, Chris Waller and John O'Shea who will unveil AUS$850,000 ($659,770) Inglis Australian Easter Yearling Sale purchase Twentyfour Carat. Cleary revealed Girls Are Ready's pattern of racing off the speed in her two starts so far was by design.

"In track gallops with older horses she was able to get the drag off them. We know with 2-year-old racing, a lot of it is cut-throat and they burn the candle at both ends and a little filly like her, she wouldn't be able to do that," he said. "We have taught her to settle and we have kicked some goals already."

Girls Are Ready, who as the name suggests is owned by an all-female syndicate, was bought by Cleary from the book 2 session of this year's Magic Millions Gold Coast Yearling Sale when offered by Yarramalong Park, a shareholder in Better Than Ready.

"You wouldn't believe it, I didn't even have her marked (in the catalog). She just walked past me. I said to my wife, 'what is this thing?'. She just had some swagger about her, so I went back to the barn and had a look at her," recalled Cleary, the son of Golden Slipper Stakes (G1)-winning trainer Frank Cleary.

"I had bid on a horse by The Factor  and missed out, so I went back and got the filly out again and, without being cheeky, I asked what the reserve was on her and old mate from Lyndhurst Stud said, 'Joe, we need to get the BTRs out there because we want to get them going'.

"I said I'd go to $40,000 for her and in the end I got her for $30,000 and the rest is history."

Better Than Ready has so far been a first season sire revelation, producing Boomer Bloodstock Calaway Gal Stakes winner Better Reflection and Spirit Of Boom Phelan Ready Stakes winner The Odyssey at Doomben on Saturday, mirroring the success of fellow young Queensland sire Spirit Of Boom last year.

Better Than Ready could have at least four runners in the Magic Millions 2-year-old Classic, with Girls Are Ready set to join Gold Coast-bound The Odyssey, Better Reflection, and Betaima, who has won twice from four starts for trainer Toby Edmonds.

Girls Are Ready is currently 25th in the order of entry for the Magic Millions 2-year-old Classic, which is led by the unbeaten Gai Waterhouse and Adrian Bott-trained Unite And Conquer.

Meanwhile, Cleary has talented sprinting mare Lucy Rose nominated for a Benchmark 78 Handicap at Warwick Farm on Saturday, but the trainer says she is a doubtful starter. He plans to instead run her at Moruya on Sunday, but stablemate Tag And Release is expected to accompany Girls Are Ready to Sydney and run in the TAB Highway Handicap .