Storm Queen Favourite For Golden Slipper

Press, Volume CV, Issue 31011, 17 March 1966, Page 4

Storm Queen Favourite For Golden Slipper

[From the Australian correspondent of "The Press.”] SYDNEY. Storm Queen, with six successive wins in her first season, is the logical favourite for the Golden Slipper Stakes, but whether she can maintain her record of wins is another matter.

The Golden Slipper Stakes is run at Rosehill on March 26 over six furlongs. It is the richest two-year-old race in Australia, with a guarantee of 25,000 dollars stake money.

On Saturday Storm Queen won the V.R.C. Sires’ Produce Stakes, beating Legal Boy and the Sydney filly, Very Merry, In a smartly run seven furlongs.

UNBEATEN Legal Boy (by Robber Prince) and Very Merry (by Wilkes) were unbeaten in four starts. Storm Queen won her first two races at the beginning of August Her first win in the present campaign was on January 29. Legal Boy had one run since his spell after his spring campaign—On February 19 at Flemington. Very Merry had had one run on February 26. More improvement may be expected in both Legal Boy and Very Merry than would normally be the case with Storm Queen. LATE ENTRY The Legal Boy stable apparently is thinking on these lines, for the 2000 dollars late entry fee is to be paid for him so that he can run in the Golden Slipper Stakes. He was not in the original entries. But Storm Queen has the score on the board and the Sydney late entry, Academy Star, and the 40,000 dollars Lancashire Lad, which was beaten on Saturday at Rosehill, will be, with many others, hard-pressed to beat her. Storm Queen is by Coronation Boy from Storm Gleam, a mare which previously had produced two outstanding two-year-old winners, Anna Rose and I’Orage Boy. Her owner, P. Cummings, Is a brother of the trainer, Bart Cummings, and usually sells the foals from the mare; but he retained Storm Queen because of her potential as a brood mare, for she is a highly attractive individual. RACE OF SEASON Undoubtedly the Golden Slipper Stakes will be the race of the season as far as two-year-olds are concerned. Neither Storm Queen nor Legal Boy is eligible for the Sires Produce Stakes at Randwick, but they are engaged in the Champagne Stakes —the race that produced the Eye Liner-Relsling-Cltlus struggle last year. This time last season the two-year-olds provided racing’s star attractions, and the forecast that racing would benefit further from them as three-year-olds proved correct.

Citlus won the Lightning Stakes and the Oakleigh Plate. Star Affair won the Futurity Stakes, and many of the openclass races fell to them. Midlander and Prince Grant were among those which showed excellent form over distances.

Favourably handicapped Bowl King, a four-year-old, won the Newmarket Handicap on Saturday, but was hard pressed all the way by the three-year-olds, Peace Council and Citlus. LIGAMENT TROUBLE

Star Affair was withdrawn from the race because of a temporary breakdown In a ligament. He was the pre-post favourite. -

The next big sprint in the calendar is the Doncaster Handicap and the three-year-olds are bound to do justice to their group. Among them will be Eye Liner, which by winning in Brisbane on Saturday brought her record to 12 wins from 13 starts. This filly by Smokey Eyes will contest the Doncaster, which this year will be a test for the cream of the sprinters in the Eastern States.

Prince Grant’s success in the St. Leger in Melbourne gave the New Zealand sire, Alcimedes, a double for the afternoon’s racing. In Sydney Oromedes continued bls run of wins by winning the Trial Handicap from the heavily backed favourite, The Snow Bruner. Oromedes is owned by the New Zealanders D. M. Calder and T. P. Keane. He was removed from the stables of H. H. Riley after he had won at his first start and was handed to A. J. Lyell to train. STAYING TYPE Lyell now has won three In succession with the three-year-old, and greater success is to come, for Oromedes looks every bit a stayer. Prince Grant, winner of the

A.J.C. Derby, and a disappointment in his other classic races in the spring, showed that his forward position in the last Melbourne Cup was not a fluke by winning the St. Leger from start to finish. Nothing in the strong field of

three-year-olds had a chance with this fast-running stayer. Lyell also won with the New Zealand - bred Shakedown, a son of Chatsworth II which beat the glamour colt, Lancashire Lad, very convincingly. Rosehill racegoers saw another promising stayer in Dunrobin, a son of Le Filou, which won the Auburn Stakes (lOf) at his first run over a bit of distance.