A good filly has Peter Very excited

Prominent owner-breeder Peter Gleeson admits unbeaten harness racing filly Very Pretty (American Ideal) is giving him the same sort of thrills that brilliant pacer Ride High provided during his period of dominance from 2018 to 2020.

Ride High wowed racing fans of all codes during a scintillating career that reaped 16 wins from 18 starts and Very Pretty is trending the same way with an unbeaten sequence of seven since her racetrack debut late last year.

Among the wins have been a Group 1 Breeders Crown Final last year and two thumping victories by an aggregate margin of more than 70m to start her campaign as a three-year-old in 2024.

Gleeson didn’t hesitate to rate the Emma Stewart-trained pacer the best filly he’s ever had an involvement with and is excited about what’s in store across the next couple of seasons.

“Ride High and Safe And Sound would be the two best horses I’ve ever had and she’s certainly the best female,” the Maryborough-based Gleeson said.

“Beauty Secret won the Victoria Oaks, but this filly can make her own luck I think you’ll find. I’m not so sure that Beauty Secret could do that, and she got beaten plenty of times as a three-year-old.

“I’d say only bad luck or injury is going to beat this filly as a three-year-old by the looks of it.

“You can’t be sure how far she’s going to go except that if she stays sound, she’s going to have a very, very big three-year-old campaign.”

There was no desire for synergy through breeding lines when it came time to name the filly by American Ideal out of The Good Times, with Gleeson opting to acknowledge his horse’s striking looks.

“She came down to my place, she got off the truck and I thought, holy Moses, look at you!,” Gleeson recalled.

“I wasn’t used to seeing one as good of a type as that.

“And right from the word go she has just been a standout.

“I’d have been shocked if she was not much good.”

Gleeson said he would not be interested in chasing a start in the TAB Eureka with Very Pretty despite her obvious appeal to slot holders, rather opting for the Vicbred Super Series around the same time in September.

The star filly is a red-hot punters’ fancy in Saturday night’s NSW Oaks and will be one of four Victorian-trained favourites in the Menangle Group 1 features. Brent Lilley’s megastar mare Queen Elida is well fancied to win her third-straight Macarthur Mile, while Margaret Lee’s Keayang Zahara and Very Pretty’s stablemate Ladies In Red are market leaders in the NSW Trotters Oaks and Queen Elizabeth II Mile respectively.

For complete race entries, click here.

by Tim O’Connor, for HRV