KISS ME KATY SCORES IN EMPHATIC STYLE

By Graham Potter | Tuesday, June 9, 2009

Sir Douglas Wadley Plate (2yo Fillies - Set weights) - 1200m. Time 1.12.87.
Track - Heavy 8. Rail - out 4m.
1 Kiss Me Katy; 2 Dual Chamber; 3 Lagerphone

Trainer Steven O’dea continued his fine run of success when Kiss Me Katy improved her record to four wins from five starts by taking out the Listed Sir Douglas Wadley Plate for two-year-old fillies at set weights at Eagle Farm on Saturday.

The only time Kiss Me Katy has had her colours lowered was in the warm-up start for this race. While that effort, nine days out from this contest, resulted in a long-head defeat it was an essential piece of the Douglas Wadley race-winning puzzle as Kiss Me Katy needed that run when resuming ... and she showed the full benefit of that outing here when striding to a facile victory in the Black Type feature in her first go at 1200m.

WINNER FEEDBACK:
Trainer Steven O’dea: “We wanted to give her six weeks off last time, which meant that she was going to miss most of the carnival, so yeah ... this was the obvious target for her to get some Black Type. The wet track didn’t really bother me. She’s done a little bit of work on the course proper on wet tracks before. She is by Mull Of Kintyre and they are noted wet trackers.

“The plan wasn’t really to lead. It would have been nice to take a sit today. I think she is a better chaser than she is when she leads. In all of her work she has shown that she is a better chaser, so, you know, that’s probably not the best of her that you’ve seen today.

“There was no real obvious speed in the race. She wanted to go a little bit keen today, so Brad just let her stride and she settled in front then. I was a bit worried about that keenness, but Brad just let her stride and she came back underneath him which was good. I’ll talk to the owner but we’ll probably looked at freshening her up and then might take her to Sydney - the San Damenico...and then a couple of those fillies’ races.

“I’ll just have to think about things a little bit. She’s fired up a little bit this preparation. She was a very relaxed filly before that. Whether we end up taking the blinkers off her once she gets stretched out over a little bit further ... I’m not sure ... but once she learns to settle I can’t see why she won’t run 1400m.”

Jockey Brad Pengelly: “She obviously needed the run the other day (when losing her unbeaten record by a long-head at Doomben nine days out from this run). I didn’t knock her about too much either. We were meant to run her a week before last Thursday, but it was washed out, so we had to re-organise and start again. It was her first start over 1200m - on a heavy track – and she coped quite well. I really believe she will be a better filly when we can take a sit. I really believe she is a better chaser than she is a leader, so she has got a lot of untapped potential there.

“She jumped very well. I sort of waited for something to take up the running, but nothing did. So I elected to do that and she relaxed nicely ... then she accelerated really well.

“I had nine weeks off with an injury. It’s not ideal coming into the carnival sort of thing, but you try and make every post a winner. You’ve just got to do the best you can do. I broke my C6 bone, yeah. I sort of rushed it a bit, I was back in nine weeks because you have to get back for the carnival sort of thing, but obviously I had to be careful and take my time as well. It does feel good mate. The next few weeks should be quite nice.”

PRICE FLUCTUATIONS:
Winner (Kiss Me Katy): 2.00 out to 2.10.
The winner was the favourite.