Group quinella to Forster stablemates
Trainer Desleigh Forster is talking about Group One races for Cylinder Beach and stablemate Too Good To Refuse following their stable quinella in the Gunsynd Classic at Doomben.
Cylinder Beach ($5.50) beat Too Good To Refuse ($6.50) by a half head with a long neck to favourite Havasay ($5) in Saturday’s Group Three race over 1530 metres.
Forster has won several stakes races with horses such as Adebisi and Easy Running but a Group One is still to come her way.
Another stablemate, Spring Champion Stakes runner-up I’m Belucci, got too far back and was unplaced.
“Cylinder Beach and I’m Belucci will go on to the Queensland Derby and both will probably start next in the Rough Habit Plate at 2000 metres in a fortnight,” Forster said.
“But I think a staying trip is too far for Too Good To Refuse and I would like to get him into the Stradbroke Handicap at 1400 metres.”
Cylinder Beach’s jockey Michael Cahill said it had been a great training effort from Forster.
“Desleigh really should get a lot of credit,” he said.
“To have three runners in a Group race and then quinella it is outstanding, especially as she has only a small team.
“I hope people realise the work that went in to getting Cylinder Beach to win first up at 1600 metres. It is the mark of a top trainer.”
Forster believes Cylinder Beach should have nearly won the Group One J J Atkins Stakes last winter instead of finishing fourth to Press Statement.
“Swap the barriers and we might have had a shot. But he was immature and I knew we had a real horse,” she said.
“We were going to take him to Sydney for the Australian Derby but he had a few set backs and we decided to wait for the winter.”
“The Brisbane Race Club has been great to me by letting me work Cylinder Beach on the course proper at Eagle Farm,” she said.