Dry track to help Blanco Cara in Qld Oaks

Wednesday 31 May 2017, 11:34am

The prospect of a dry track has boosted the chances of Sydney filly Blanco Cara stopping a Chris Waller domination of the Group One Queensland Oaks.

Waller will have a record seven runners in Saturday's Oaks, the largest representation from one stable in a Queensland Group One race since the late Tommy Smith had five runners in a Stradbroke Handicap almost 50 years ago.

The switch of the race to Doomben means a distance reduction from 2400m to 2200m and fine weather in Brisbane has John Thompson hopeful he can be the Sydney trainer holding the Oaks trophy.

Blanco Cara finished midfield in the Group Two Adrian Knox on a heavy track during the Sydney autumn carnival Thompson elected to miss the ATC Australian Oaks because of the prospect of another wet track.

Instead he set Blanco Cara for the Queensland Oaks and hoped for dry conditions.

Blanco Cara has already been to Queensland this winter, finishing fifth in the Gold Coast Bracelet on May 6.

Thompson had then intended to run the filly in the traditional Oaks lead-up, the Doomben Roses, on May 20.

"She drew wide and there was a forecast for plenty of rain. She doesn't like really wet tracks and as it turned out the track was heavy at Doomben," Thompson said.

"So instead she ran in a race at Newcastle and got the job done with a win."

Thompson thinks Blanco Cara is well up to a Group One race at this time of the year.

"Her run in the Bracelet was good and she had no luck. To finish as close as she did to the winner Dawn Wall was a nice effort," he said.

"She has won up to 2300 metres so the distance of 2200 (metres) on Saturday will be no trouble."

A win would give Thompson his second Group One win for the season after Sir John Hawkwood's victory in The Metropolitan.

Blanco Cara, who is raced by one of Jamie Walter's Proven Thoroughbreds syndicates, is by the Galileo stallion Cape Blanco who is gradually building up a reputation as a sire of stayers in Australia and New Zealand.

Fine weather is forecast for the rest of the week in Brisbane and track manager Jim Roberts believes the rating will be in the good range.

– AAP

Latest News

Prime Thoroughbreds - We have a Host of Leaders in our Team

Tuesday, 29 June 2021

Prime Thor­ough­bred’s cur­rent rac­ing team is putt­ing to­gether quite a re­cord. We have 22 hors­es that have raced in our team at pre­sent. Six­teen of th­ese are win­n­ers in­clud­ing the Stakes win­n­ing trio Ru­bisa­ki, Fituese and Xtreme­time with Miss Di­vine Em and Miss In Charge run­n­ing 4th in Stakes races. This sees a stakes win­n­er to win­n­er ra­tio of 18.75% with a stake’s per­formed to win­n­er ra­tio of 31.25%. Th­ese are ex­cep­tio­n­al fig­ures.   More »

Freedmans land maiden Group One win

Saturday, 27 February 2021

Un­der-rat­ed fil­ly For­bid­den Love has emerged as an au­tumn car­ni­val smokey with a bril­liant per­for­mance to win the Sur­round Stakes at Rand­wick.  More »

Capriccio completes Damian Lane treble

Saturday, 27 February 2021

In a big day for coun­try-trained hors­es, War­r­nam­bool fil­ly Capric­cio has tak­en out the In­glis Dash for Daniel Bow­man.  More »

More news headlines »