St Edward’s Crown flag bearer for Fliedner
St Edward’s Crown carries Shane Fliedner’s hopes of a Group win in the Thousand Guineas Prelude.
Bendigo trainer Shane Fliedner is seeing the benefits of having a well-bred horse in is stable.
With a buying budget between $5000 and $50,000, Fliedner is forced away from the better-bred horses.
But with an owner and breeder like Mario Cesnik, Fliedner has been able to get his hands on a filly that he says is potentially the best horse he has trained.
Cesnik bought Patina, the dam of stakes winner Viridine, from Darley Stud in 2016 at the Magic Millions National Broodmare Sale in foal to Epaulette.
The result is St Edward’s Crown who runs on Sunday in the Group Three Thousand Guineas Prelude (1400m) at Caulfield, the traditional lead-up to the Group One Thousand Guineas (1600m) on October 12.
“I’ve had some nice enough horses but she’s potentially looking the best and I can see why these better-bred horses win Group races,” Fliedner said.
“They have more presence about them. It’s like watching a footballer on the football field, they’re athletes.
“I buy $5000 to $50,000 horses whereas the more athletic ones are out of my budget.”
Fliedner says he would like to be in a position to just win races with St Edward’s Crown, but knows the importance of stakes races, especially for an owner-breeder.
St Edward’s Crown broke her maiden status at Flemington in June which had Fliedner and Cesnik thinking about spring.
The filly resumed with a third-placed finish, collecting black-type, at The Valley over 1200m on September 7 before dropping back to 1100m when fifth at Flemington a week later.
Fliedner explained that it was important to get St Edward’s Crown to the races every second week as she is a lazy trackworker, but a hardy filly.
“I got her straight from the breakers and she went straight through to the races and has had three weeks break in that time,” Fliedner said.
“Realistically she’s done very well.”