Banjup trainer Annie Belton is a good judge of horseflesh and she has no regrets about outlaying $26,000 to purchase Lady De La Renta at the 2016 Perth yearling sale.
The filly has won at five of her 15 starts for earnings of $74,769 and she has bright prospects of adding $30,225 to her prizemoney by winning the Group 2 $50,000 Alltools Diamond Classic for three-year-old fillies over 2130m at Gloucester Park on Friday night.
Lady De La Renta has a losing sequence of five, but reinsman Chris Voak declared that he was quietly confident of success, saying that he expected the filly to improve sharply on her ninth placing behind Our Major Mama in the WA Oaks last Friday week when she started out wide at barrier seven and was trapped wide early before being restrained to the rear.
“I expect her to be close to her best this week,” Voak said. “I liked the feel she gave me when I worked her on the track on Tuesday morning.”
Lady De La Renta will start from the No. 4 barrier on the front line on Friday night and Voak is planning to send the filly forward from the start in a bid to take up the running.
An even field of fillies will contest the Diamond Classic and luck in running will play an important part, with Oaks winner Our Major Mama starting from barrier six and her promising stablemate De La Tourbie facing a stern test from the outside barrier (No. 9).
The Michael Brennan-trained Miss Sangrial fared poorly in the draw and will need luck from barrier eight, with star reinsman Gary Hall Jnr in the sulky. She is a talented filly who has raced 31 times for ten wins and 11 placings.
Brennan is hoping that Miss Sangrial will make amends for her narrow defeat when favourite at 10/1 on in the Two-Year-Old Diamond Classic early last June. Miss Sangrial started from barrier one and set the pace before being overhauled in the final stages to be defeated by a short half-head by fast-finishing outsider Cimorene.
Oakford trainer Ross Olivieri will be represented by Retort (barrier two) and Veiled Secret (seven). Mitch Miller will drive Retort, a winner at Narrogin two starts ago, and Shannon Suvaljko will handle Veiled Secret, who is showing steady improvement and has won at her past two starts, at Narrogin and Bunbury, after working hard without cover.
Orphan Reactor, prepared at Capel by Andrew de Campo, will have admirers after drawing the prized No. 1 barrier. The filly is a good frontrunner who began fast from barrier seven two starts ago before setting the pace and winning over 2185m at Pinjarra.
Lady De La Renta is bred to be a good winner. She is by American stallion Well Said and is the second foal out of Jet Laag mare Flylika Bird Lombo, a winner of seven races and $53,975. Flylika Bird Lombo is out of Decethree Lombo, who produced 11 winners, including Lombo Skyrider, an outstanding juvenile who won 14 races in Victoria, New South Wales and South Australia as a two and three-year-old. Lombo Skyrider was a prolific winner in America and was retired after having 321 starts for 63 wins, 84 placings and $841,611 in prizemoney.