The team environment at Godolphin has trainer James Cummings focused on getting Celerity off to a winning start in the group 3 Widden Stakes (1100m) at Rosehill on Saturday.
While promising homebred colt Traffic Warden returns as one of the favourites in the group 3 Canonbury Stakes (1100m), it’s the $850,000 filly purchased at the Inglis Easter Sale that piques Cummings’ interest.
Traffic Warden proves too strong for his rivals at Caulfield last year.Credit: Getty
“The buying team went and did their job and found a really nice filly for us,” Cummings said. “These horses we buy at sales carry extra interest because the buying team is riding every run with them.
“We win a lot of group 1 races with horses like Anamoe that we have bred, but I remember when In Secret won the Newmarket, it was such a big thing that we bought her and got the ultimate result.
“This filly has done everything right and that’s why she is debuting in a group 3. We haven’t let her off the bridle in her trials.
“We have left a bit of improvement in her, but she has shown us enough to think she should be competitive.”
Premier jockey James McDonald allowed Celerity to bowl through the line when second behind Chateau Miraval in her most recent barrier trial and will ride the Exceed And Excel filly a half-kilogram over at 55 kilograms.
“She gave me a good feel and I can’t wait to see what is there when I hit the button,” McDonald said.
Celerity, which is a $5 chance for the Widden, has been backed from $201 to $34 in the Golden Slipper before even having a start and would shorten further if she made a winning debut.
Traffic Warden is the same quote of $34 for the Golden Slipper but carries race experience into his Rosehill assignment. He was runner-up to Golden Slipper favourite Storm Boy on debut before scoring a strong win at Caulfield last year. He is a $3.30 second pick in Canonbury betting behind Prost.
“He didn’t lose any ground to Storm Boy late in the race on debut, and he didn’t surprise us by winning at his next start,” Cummings said. “It is a good test for him, and, looking at this race’s history, it provides Golden Slipper runners every year. You need to be pretty good to win it.
“It opens options going forward for him and, like the filly, he will take a fair deal of improvement from this run.”
Meanwhile, champion jockey Damien Oliver will make a return to race riding in an international jockey series in Saudi Arabia next month.
Oliver rode at the Flemington jump-outs on Friday and confirmed that he would get into the saddle again after his memorable finale at Ascot in December where he won his last three races, including a miracle win on Munhamek in the Damien Oliver Gold Rush, which was supposedly going to close his career.
“It was an offer too good to refuse, although bittersweet having such a great finish to my career in Perth,” Oliver said in a Ladbrokes interview.
“I wasn’t really planning on doing something like this, but an opportunity like this doesn’t come along very often, so I thought I might as well have a crack as a one-off.”
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