Gai Waterhouse says there is no better way to repay the faith of Queen Elizabeth sending Carlton House to Sydney than by winning Saturday’s Queen Elizabeth Stakes at Randwick.
Subscribe now for unlimited access.
$0/
(min cost $0)
or signup to continue reading
The six-year-old has been made favourite for the $4 million highlight of The Championships, and Waterhouse has him peaking for Saturday.
“When you get a horse from her majesty it is a great honour,” Waterhouse said. “We of course looked at this race for him from the start of the preparation as the one we want to win.
“To win her majesty’s race with her majesty’s horse it wouldn’t get any better.”
The royal silks will be on Tom Berry's shoulders in the Queen Elizabeth and he rides a horse which won at a group 2 and group 3 in England around the 2000-metre mark of Saturday’s race.
“It is honour to be riding for her majesty, I haven’t spoken to her yet but if he wins on Saturday I might be a chance,” Berry said.
“He is the right horse to do it. I have been confident of that for a long time.”
Carlton House was a gift to the Queen from Sheikh Mohammed and started favourite in the English Derby and ran third before being runner-up to So You Think in the Prince Of Wales Stakes.
The Street Cry entire has yet to win in Australia but has been runner-up at his past two starts, in the Parramatta Cup and then in Ranvet Stakes, where he was run down by Silent Achiever. Berry missed the Ranvet second when he went to visit his ailing twin brother Nathan in Singapore.
“I’m lucky that Gai and her majesty have had the faith to put me back on him,” Berry said. “Obviously at his last start I had to go to Singapore to be with Nathan and this [ride] will be for him as well.
"He is an exceptional horse and Kerrin McEvoy rode him really well in the Ranvet. I will try to ride him like Kerrin did because he just gets a tough 2000m.
“I know he hasn’t won here but I have so much faith in his ability and this is his race. He has had a month between runs but he is thriving at home.”
After only having the one group 1 runner last week, the Waterhouse yard resumes usual service for Saturday.
She not only has the favourite on the main race on the second day of The Championships, but The Offer is a heavily supported top pick in the Sydney Cup. There will be three Australian Oaks runners for Tulloch Lodge in Amanpour, Forever Loved and Role Model, while Shahad and Cosmic Endeavour are likely to contest the Queen Of The Turf.
It has been more than year since Waterhouse won her last Sydney group 1 but in between she prepared Fiorente to win a Melbourne Cup and Australian Cup, and it will be imported gallopers which give her best chance of breaking the drought.
The Offer will be out to join Marooned from 1986 in completing the Manion Cup-Chairman’s Handicap- Sydney Cup treble. He is another horse that has been turned around by a gelding operation.
“He was an entire going nowhere at all in the Aidan O’Brien yard when we got him - absolutely going nowhere at all,” Waterhouse said. “We gave him one prep here before cutting him.
“He has changed completely, once we gelded him. He is just a different horse now. All he wants to be is a racehorse now and you are seeing the best of him.
“He is the one to beat in the Sydney Cup and then we will think about the Melbourne Cup.”
