David Hayes headed to Moonee Valley thinking Gregers was his leading hope for this year’s Schweppes Thousand Guineas, but he left knowing it. The untapped filly announced herself a potential star of the Spring Racing Carnival with an awesome win in the $80,000 Aquanas Foods BM78 Handicap (1000m).
The daughter of Commands launched a stunning finish to demolish small-but-quality field of rivals and affirm Hayes’ big opinion of her.
“That was a bit special,” Hayes said. “What I liked was she did so much wrong and still exploded away from them,” the Euroa trainer said.
“I wouldn’t have a better one for the Guineas than her at the moment.
“They’ll have to be good to beat her in the races coming up."
Gregers showed she had taken great improvement from her two-start debut campaign, which started with an upset win at Moonee Valley and concluded with a fourth placing in the Group 1 Blue Diamond Stakes.
After jumping well under Kayla Nisbet, Gregers settled in third position on the outside before cruising alongside the leaders entering the straight.
The $3.70 chance, a drifter from her opening quote of $2.60, exploded away over the final 200m to score by 4-1/4 lengths from Metastasio ($1.95 fav), who turned in a respectable performance after having to be pushed along early to take up a forward position after a slow getaway.
Jennyfromtheblock ($13) unleashed an impressive finish to edge out blueblood filly Maroon Bay ($5) for third, a length behind Metastasio.
Hayes will wait and see how Gregers comes through today’s race before deciding her next assignment, but said it was unlikely she would start for at least three weeks.
Gregers’ win was part of a stellar start to the day for claiming apprentice jockeys, who won the first four events on the card.
Patrick Moloney’s won the first race aboard Clevadude, Jake Duffy teamed with the Peter Moody-trained Dayita to win Race 3 and Katelyn Mallyon completed the quadrella with upset victory aboard Bonne Nuit for Barry Fox.
Full results of those race, plus the day’s other events, are available here