Big guns ready to return for top stable

Champion mare Ladies In Red, glamour stablemate Tough Tilly and last season’s Victoria Derby and Breeders Crown hero Act Now are all poised for racetrack returns.

And the co-trainers have already unveiled an exciting juvenile in Petracca.

In fact, Petracca is on the quick back-up from a luckless Bathurst Gold Crown raid when he tackles the Shakamaker Classic at Melton on Saturday night.

“We think he’s really good. His run was enormous the other night from so far back,” Stewart said.

“He got back home Saturday and has been so well since, we thought we’d run him again this week.

“He’s a deadset two-year-old. He’s small, fast and a really nice pacer.

“We’ve got about 20 two-year-olds and Petracca is the only one we’ve really asked a lot of yet. The colts and geldings seem a bit stronger than the fillies in this crop, which is different to recent years for us.”

Petracca will dominate the betting in the six-horse field despite drawing wide in gate five.

Excitingly, fans will see Ladies In Red back racing a lot earlier than expected.

The original plan was a July return, but the rescheduling of the $210,000 Australian Gold final to Menangle on May 7 prompted a change.

Ladies In Red, who boasts 17 wins and three seconds from her 20 starts, hasn’t raced since posting her fourth Group 1 win in the Vicbred 3YO final at Melton on New Year’s Eve.

“Her and Tough Tilly are ready to trial, it’s just a matter of whether that’s next week or the week after,” Stewart said.

“I’d say they would both go first-up into the (Gold) heats at Ballarat. We can get them ready and home and with a trial or two. They both seem really well.”

Tough Tilly, who boasts a Group 1 win over Ladies In Red, has been restricted to just seven starts over the past year with minor setbacks.

She hasn’t raced since finishing fourth at Melton on November 13, last year.

Act Now is targeting the entires and geldings division of the same series.

Those heats are finals mirrors Ladies In Red’s dates.

“He trialled really well at Ballarat today,” Stewart said.

“He’s ready to go now and may race before the Gold heats, but it’s a matter of finding a suitable race because he’s so far up in the grades now.”

Stewart said the stable would have lots of travel coming up with feature carnivals in Tasmania and the time-honoured Mildura Cup.

“We’ve got horses like Beyond Delight, Longfellow, Like A Wildfire, Demon Delight and others and we’ll have to sit down and work out who goes to the Easter Cup in Tassie, which is a standing-start, and which goes to the Mildura Cup,” she said.

In other stable news, Stewart said brilliant open-class pacer Honolua Bay returned to the stable this week after a spell.

“He’s just been battling a quarter crack and needed time out to get over it. We’re looking at the bigger races later in the year with him,” she said.

By Adam Hamilton