Shannon McLean (right) and father Rick are hoping to celebrate more success with Broadways Best in the Vicbred 3YO Fillies Final
Friday night’s Moonee Valley program is one Shannon McLean has been looking forward to all season.
The 32-year-old only has two horses in his Gisborne South stable, but they are gun mare Broadway Play and Victoria Oaks-winning filly Broadways Best.
The two Group 1 races on this weekend's program are tailor-made for McLean. Along with the Nevele R Stud Queen Of The Pacific for the mares there’s the Sky Channel Vicbred Super Series final for the three-year-old girls.
In a shattering recent development for McLean and the family members that race Broadway Play, a hoof abscess means she won’t be there when the strands release in the $100,000 Queen Of The Pacific, but Broadways Best will fly the stable flag.
“This was a week that I’ve been looking forward to for a long time, so that (abscess) put a little bit of a dampener on things but we can’t do anything about it now and I’m just trying to focus on the positives,” he said.
The positives are that Broadways Best is at the top of her game and will go around a short-priced favourite in the $100,000 Vicbred decider at 8.42pm.
She was easily the more impressive of last week’s semi-final winners, running two seconds faster than Life Inthefastlane, and she did it from outside the back row.
It was good practice as champion reinsman Chris Alford, a two-time winner of the Vicbred three-year-old fillies division, has another back-row draw (10) to contend with in tomorrow night’s 2100-metre test.
“The last two starts she’s had to come from behind – at Maryborough when she won her heat and she was brilliant in the semi – so it has been good practice for her,” McLean said.
“She’s a horse that still needs to learn a bit about how to race from behind and I think last Friday night was the best we’ve seen her in that role, which is positive for this weekend.”
The biggest thing standing between Broadways Best and Vicbred success could be history. Since the first Vicbred final in 1983 only Concorde Lombo (1997) has been able to complete the Victoria Oaks-Vicbred double.
“Hmm, I wish you hadn’t have told me that!” McLean chuckled when told that statistic. “But I don’t think it’ll matter much once the horses get out on the track.
“She is definitely going to be the hunted and some are going to try and track us or get one step in front of us. But she’s fit and healthy and l’ll just let Chris do the rest and hope that we have no bad luck.”
The fillies aren’t the only Vicbred three-year-olds in action tomorrow night with the colts and geldings to chase a spot in the following Friday night’s $100,000 Group 1 final when they do battle in a pair of semi-finals.
Australian Derby winner Village Of Dreams and Tasmanian Derby champion Garnet River are the star attractions in the opening qualifier at 8.12pm, while defending champion Living On Fire and class act Hilton Fly High lock horns an hour later.
