Gai says it's No Looking Back for her Blue Diamond bid

MICK Price's stylish filly Samaready firmed further yesterday as a hot favourite for the $1 million Blue Diamond Stakes at Caulfield this month, but Sydney trainer Gai Waterhouse says she is confident of having the winner of the group 1 race for juveniles, reports The Age. It says: Asked yesterday if she was sending down one of her immense two-year-old team for Victoria's premier juvenile race, the Randwick trainer answered: ''Yes, I am. The winner, No Looking Back.'' Waterhouse said her filly,

MICK Price's stylish filly Samaready firmed further yesterday as a hot favourite for the $1 million Blue Diamond Stakes at Caulfield this month, but Sydney trainer Gai Waterhouse says she is confident of having the winner of the group 1 race for juveniles, reports The Age.

It says: Asked yesterday if she was sending down one of her immense two-year-old team for Victoria's premier juvenile race, the Randwick trainer answered: ''Yes, I am. The winner, No Looking Back.''

Waterhouse said her filly, controversially stripped of the Magic Millions Classic Crown on the Gold Coast after a protest last month, had been impressing when working anti-clockwise at Randwick to prepare her for her Melbourne debut. She is ranked a $10 chance to win the Blue Diamond.

''She worked very strongly again yesterday, shouldering her way past some very big colts and she is just a professional,'' Waterhouse said. ''She's taken so much from her travels and it's such a great thing, experience-wise, for a horse to travel. I think it's very important in their development.''

Waterhouse said she noted the dominant Blue Diamond Prelude performance of Samaready and conceded she was a filly of great promise. ''But all I can say is that any horse that beats her will win the Blue Diamond,'' she said.

Waterhouse said that while some of Sydney's best colts were still to make their return to the track, the fillies in Melbourne appeared to have the upper hand. ''It's early days in Sydney with an eye to the Golden Slipper [in April] but apart from the Vinery filly [Samaready] the rest have been quite unimpressive,'' she said.

Samaready firmed further into $2.40 yesterday for the Blue Diamond Stakes in 12 days after Price spoke glowingly of her yesterday after just her second race start.