Emma Stewart will be chasing success with young hope Beauty Secret at Tabcorp Park on Friday night
Having already produced some of Victoria’s most exciting baby pacers this season, gun young Ballarat horsewoman Emma Stewart is hoping to continue her hot juvenile streak with Beauty Secret in Friday night’s BIG6 Youthful Stakes at Tabcorp Park.
Set to start a tick under 24 hours before her star stablemate Shake It Mama takes on the Group 1 Gold Tiara at Bathurst, Beauty Secret may presently lack the raw ability of both that filly and her even more celebrated Smythes Creek cohabitant Restrepo.
But after dominating from the death in her debut victory at Kilmore some three weeks ago, Stewart will be relying on her peerless early maturity and admirable will to win to make it two from two in the 2240-metre co-feature at headquarters this weekend.
“She (Beauty Secret) has probably got the best manners out of all of our young ones at home,” the gifted 29-year-old revealed.
“She’s a ready racehorse right now and while she’s probably second to Shake It Mama in terms of our juvenile girls, she’s not far off that filly either.
“She really impressed us winning her first start. She’s a nice filly sho just does everything right and her work since that win has been fantastic so we’re just hoping she can keep improving as we go along.”
Far from ideally drawn in gate six on the front line, Stewart’s striking daughter of Armbro Operative looks certain to have her hands full with a cavalcade of rising stars also engaged in the $20,000 opening leg of the BIG6 on Friday night.
Among those set to scupper Stewart’s young star will be fellow first-up winner Rubelee (7) along with promising young pacers Blazeaway Macray (2), Narkoola (5) and Classic Bliss (11).
But for her studious and eloquent conditioner, Beauty Secret’s biggest threats this week will be both her difficult draw and the presence of an unbeaten Susan Hunter-trained blueblood hoping to establish herself as Victoria’s standout freshman filly.
“Louvre is definitely the benchmark I think, she’s definitely the one to beat,” Stewart said. “We’ve also got that tricky gate on Friday so we can’t be certain of where we’re going to end up, but that’s why you put people like Gavin Lang in control isn’t it?
“We’d like to see here somewhere near the lead, but she doesn’t have to race as tough as she did last time to win by any stretch of the imagination.
“One thing we have worked out about her is that she does have a very good turn of foot, so if she happens to settle back it wouldn’t surprise us one bit to see her get home over the top of them with the right run.
“But as I said, Louvre looks the one to roll, so if we can beat her home we should be nearly winning I would have thought.”
The Youthful Stakes will be the third race of Victoria’s major metropolitan programme this weekend and is scheduled to run at 7:40pm.
