Scone Guineas looms large for Girl Sunday
Gerald Ryan is not a trainer who weighs his horses regularly but in the case of Girl Sunday, curiosity got the better of him.
The filly runs runs in Saturday’s $400,000 Inglis Scone Guineas (1400m) for which her stablemate Spill The Beans is favourite.
Off the track she dwarfs the colt and Ryan is hopeful she can show her talent matches her stature when she takes him on.
“She is a big girl. She used to be in the box next to Solicit and was as big as her so I weighed her out of curiosity,” Ryan said.
“She is about 16.2 hands and weighs 590 kilograms,” Ryan said.
“I don’t weigh my horses often and the last time we weighed Spill The Beans, he was 510.”
A last-start winner of the Hawkesbury Guineas, Spill The Beans is the $2.25 favourite to add the Scone feature with Girl Sunday at $17.
The filly has won two of her six starts and goes to her first stakes race off the back of an unlucky fourth in a midweek race at Warwick Farm under 61.5kg.
“She drops seven kilos but is only getting two kilos off the boys against her own age,” Ryan said.
“If it was a handicap she would be getting a lot more. Obviously Spill The Beans has the record on the board but I think Girl Sunday can run well.”
The Ryan-trained Peace Force is among the market leaders for the Group Three Dark Jewel Classic (1400m) which will be one of her final starts before she heads to stud.
The mare ran fourth in the Group Three Godolphin Crown at the Hawkesbury feature meeting on April 30 and her trainer believes she will be better suited by the Scone circuit.
“I think she’s the best she’s been this time and has improved off Hawkesbury,” Ryan said.
“The 1400 metres on a bigger track is in her favour.”
The stable has three fillies in Saturday’s Listed Denise’s Joy Stakes (1100m) – Thorsborne, Bubbleberry and Don’t Doubt Marley – all at double figures with the Bjorn Baker-trained Sangiovese the short-priced favourite.