Plans to overcome unwanted draw in $200,000 feature

Jack Trainor admits the barrier everybody usually wants is not the one he wanted for hot favourite Stylish Memphis in harness racing’s $200,000 Queen Elizabeth II Mile at Menangle tomorrow night.

But the in-form trainer-driver has not only one, but two plans on how to overcome it if things get tricky.

Stylish Memphis is the defending champion for the race usually known at the Ladyship Mile but re-named for just this year in honour of the Queen’s platinum jubilee.

Once she drew barrier 1 the TAB bookies put her up $1.70 even though it doesn’t suit her natural racing pattern of settling and swooping home late.

Stylish Memphis has used that strength to win seven of her 11 Menangle starts, with all of her defeats coming against the boys in glamour races like the Miracle Mile and Chariots Of Fire, so you could make the case around Menangle she is the best mare in Australasia.

That might count for little though if she gets crossed at the start and locked away three or four back on the inner but Trainor says that won’t happen.

“I’d rather have barrier 1 than barrier 10,” he says, “but then again I’d rather have barrier 2 than 1.

“I suppose it makes it a little tricky but I think she will surprise a few people and I think I can time my run at the gate to get her off really well and hold most of them.

“The one who might simply be too quick for us is Fairy Tinkerbell but if she beats us out and we end up trailing her that would be almost perfect.

“And if there are a few burning early and it looks like one or two might cross us then I think they will be going so fast I can get off the markers and stalk them.

“So, yes, barrier 1 isn’t perfect but I will probably work out all right.”

Trainor says Stylish Memphis is a stronger and more well-rounded mare than last season and if she wins tomorrow her connections would love another invite to next week’s $1million Miracle Mile, in which she finished sixth last season.

Two of those Miracle Mile spots are gone and it would genuinely surprise if last week’s Chariots Of Fire runner-up Bondi Lockdown didn’t get an invite so there are probably five spots left to be decided tomorrow night.

The first two home in tomorrow’s qualifiers, races four and five, automatically receive invites which should include King Of Swing (R5, No.2) who should lead and win tomorrow to set up a shot at becoming the first ever Miracle Mile threepeater.

Tomorrow’s meeting also boasts the NSW Oaks and three heats of the NSW Derby, with the Miracle Mile field to be confirmed during the night.

To view the fields for Menangle on Saturday night click here.

By Michael Guerin