Photo by Racing and Sports
Tuesday, 21 February 2012: The silver lining of Sydney's continuing wet summer is that Rain Affair, possibly the country's most progressive sprinter, will contest the $250,000 Group One Apollo Stakes at Rosehill on Saturday.
Trainer Joe Pride also nominated Rain Affair for the $500,000 Group One Futurity Stakes (1400m) at Caulfield in a possible clash with Black Caviar, but the forecast softer track conditions will see Rain Affair remain in Sydney.
Rain has continued over the past days leaving Sydney tracks in the heavy range with Canterbury a Heavy 9 for Wednesday and Rosehill a Heavy 8, but the weather is meant to improve later this week.
Rain Affair has performed well on a hard track when he clipped a new record for the listed Carrington Stakes (1100m) at Warwick Farm on January 2,covering the final 600m in 32.70sec, but Pride does not see the need to travel to Caulfield for a Good 3 track when Rosehill will provide most likely either a Slow or Dead track.
“Obviously the Melbourne race is worth a lot more money and tempting as it is with a wet track here in Sydney I am finding it hard to justify taking him away,” Pride said on Sky Sports Radio on Tuesday.
“He is most defiantly improving and he went into the Expressway Stakes with a fair bit of improvement in him, and with that run he has taken a lot of benefit from it, and he has still got plenty to go.
“It just gives us the opportunity to run this horse on a wet track with him not being at his peak I think the wise decision will be to stay here.
“There is still a bit to come. He will race really well on Saturday, but I think that possibly his run after this, his fourth run of the preparation, he will be close to his best."
The following race for Rain Affair is programmed to be the Group One Newmarket Handicap (1200m) at Flemington on March 10th.
Rain Affair, a four-year-old gelding by Commands, has won six races on either slow or heavy rated tracks. His last win was the Group 2 Expressway Stakes (1200m) at Rosehill on February 11 winning by an untroubled 4L.
Incidentally, while a final 600m in 32.70sec is exceptional in most sprints, the final 600m for last Saturday's Group One Lightning Stakes (1000m), Black Caviar's 19th successive win, was 31.82sec stamping the quality of Hay List's lead out in the race and then Black Caviar's ability to overhaul him and go away to win by 1 3/4L.
