Slumber Party aiming for spring carnival success

Tom Baddock - Thursday July 27

Gai Waterhouse and Adrian Bott will use Saturday's #THERACES Benchmark 72 Handicap (1200m) at Rosehill as a launch pad for Slumber Party to target the spring carnival.

Gai Waterhouse and Adrian Bott. Photo: Steve Hart

The daughter of Snitzel returns from a Queensland campaign which saw the three-year-old finish just two-lengths behind Bonny O'Reilly in the Listed Helen Coughlan Stakes (1200m) and 2-3/4 lengths behind Maternal in the Listed Gai Waterhouse Classic (1350m).

"I think she brings some good formlines coming into Saturday's race and she looks well placed stepping back into a ratings race, particularly against her own age coming back from open fillies and mares Listed company," Adrian Bott said.

"Obviously, I think she's a very nice filly, a quality filly.

"We were really happy with her performances in Queensland, I thought she did particularly well."

Bott is confident the filly will be advantaged by her trip to Brisbane and believes she is capable of going to the next level.

"She has stayed in work the whole time so there is plenty of residual fitness from Queensland," Bott said.

"We would like to be able to see her competing over some nicer races in the early part of the carnival, so she would need to show a very forward and competitive performance on Saturday to continue down that path, which we are very hopeful she can do.

"We gave her a nice trial at Kembla Grange since and I liked what we saw.

"There's no hesitation with her dropping back to the 1200m, she's freshened up nicely.

"Hopefully this is a nice stepping stone for her."

Slumber Party has drawn barrier one and has Brenton Avdulla booked to ride.

"Obviously Avdulla is very hungry at the moment," Bott said.

"He's a good strong positive rider and I think he'll suit the filly well.

"He made the effort to travel down to Kembla Grange to trial her so I think it's fitting he's able to continue that association.

"Hopefully we can help get him another win on the board."

Slumber Party is currently the $4.75 second favourite with Bet365 narrowly behind Peter and Paul Snowden's Faith's Encore at $4.20.

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