Wet weather could dampen Private Eye's Missile return

New Paper

5 days ago

SYDNEY Top trainer Joseph Pride has until the morning of Aug 8 to decide if early Missile Stakes favourite Private Eye will take his place in the first Group race of the Sydney season or step out in a barrier trial at Warwick Farm.
The class runner in the 10-horse field of the A$300,000 (S$250,000) Group 2 race (1,200m) on Aug 9, Private Eye has been backed from 5-2 into 8-5 since markets opened, but Pride is wary of sending him around on a testing track so early this prep.
With the Randwick surface already rated a heavy 9 and rain forecast to return on Aug 7, Pride said he may be forced to take the Al Maher eight-year-old to the trials despite seeing the Missile Stakes as a perfect seasonal kick-off.
"I feel like he's in for a good preparation and while I think he looks a good thing in that race, I'm not sure I want to kick him off on a really heavy track," said Pride, who finished fifth on the Sydney trainers' premiership last season and opened his 2025-26 account with Headley Grange last Saturday.
"I've got options. He can go in the (Group 1) Winx (Stakes) or next week, he can go down and run in the (Group 2) PB Lawrence (Stakes) at Caulfield.
"There's a good chance he'll be at the Friday trials instead but I'll decide on Friday morning."
Pride said his biggest reservation was rain on race day as the tracks tended to deteriorate quickly.
However, given his plans for the multiple-Group winner, Pride does not have the luxury of waiting to see what unfolds as the afternoon progresses on Saturday.
"Wet tracks to run on are so different when the rain is three or four days before a race as opposed to rain on race days," he said.
"Unfortunately, I'm not going to be able to wait and say, 'oh, I'm going to pull him out now'. He has to go to the trials on Friday if he doesn't race."
The Missile Stakes is the first "black type" race of the 2025-26 Sydney season with the opening major, the Group 1 Winx Stakes (1,400m) to be run at Randwick in a fortnight on Aug 23.
If Private Eye does go around this weekend, Pride expects him to stamp his class, especially given he will carry equal topweight of 57.5kg under the set weights plus penalties conditions.
"Could any other horse in that race do what he's done in his life?" he said.
"He's clearly the best horse in the race and he's not even penalised for it because it's set weights and penalties and he hasn't won a Group 1 race in the last 12 months or so."
In 43 starts over seven seasons, half of the veteran's 12 wins came at Group level with the 2021 Group 1 Epsom (1,600m) the pinnacle.
The last of his wins came in the Group 3 Festival Stakes (1,500m) at Rosehill Gardens on Nov 30, when ridden by gun Sydney jockey Nash Rawiller, his partner at his last two feature race wins.
The Missile line-up includes recent Listed Winter Challenge (1,500m) winner Robusto and Group 2 Theo Marks (1,300m) winner Encap, among others. SKY WORLD RACING