The curtain may have closed on the Sydney carnival but there will be plenty of interest in the Rowley Mile program at Hawkesbury.In-form trainer John O'Shea is among those planning to target the stand-alone meeting on Saturday after enjoying a lucrative autumn in Sydney.O'Shea won two Group One races, plundering the Rosehill Guineas with Zabrasive before ending the carnival on a high when Jessicabeel claimed Saturday's Group One Sydney Cup at Randwick.The staying pair have earned themselves Melb
The curtain may have closed on the Sydney carnival but there will be plenty of interest in the Rowley Mile program at Hawkesbury.
In-form trainer John O'Shea is among those planning to target the stand-alone meeting on Saturday after enjoying a lucrative autumn in Sydney.
O'Shea won two Group One races, plundering the Rosehill Guineas with Zabrasive before ending the carnival on a high when Jessicabeel claimed Saturday's Group One Sydney Cup at Randwick.
The staying pair have earned themselves Melbourne Cup campaigns in the spring but O'Shea's immediate focus is on two of his up-and-coming three-year-olds.
"I've got a couple of nice horses going to Hawkesbury," O'Shea said.
"I've got Honest Lies who has won four from eight and I've also got a nice filly running in the Darley mares race, Ready Miss.
"They are both progressive three-year-olds and only lightly-raced and both of them have good records, Ready Miss has won two from four."
Honest Lies, by well-performed New Zealand-based stallion O'Reilly, will be nominated for the $100,000 Hawkesbury Guineas (1400m).
The colt strung together three consecutive wins last campaign, culminating in a Saturday class victory at Rosehill in November.
He finished third as an odds-on favourite when he resumed at Gosford earlier this month but bounced back with an all-the-way win at Kembla Grange over 1400m last start.
Ready Miss is set to take her place in the Listed Darley Crown (1300m) following an emphatic 3-3/4 length triumph at Canterbury last Wednesday week.
With the Anzac Day public holiday on Monday, nominations for the Hawkesbury meeting, headlined by the Listed Rowley Mile (1600m), will be released on Tuesday.
Meanwhile, O'Shea is likely to dodge the carnival races in Brisbane with smart mare Music Review to concentrate on a winter Cups campaign closer to home.
The six-year-old, who will be retired to the broodmare barn this spring, is still racing in great heart finishing a luckless fourth to Sacred Choice in the Group Two Emancipation Stakes (1600m) at Randwick on Saturday.
"We'll play it by ear but this is her last campaign and we'll probably just stay here and run in races like the McKell and Winter Cups," O'Shea said.
"She went up to Brisbane last year and you needed a set of flippers."
O'Shea confirmed Music Review would have her next start in the Lord Mayor's Cup (2000m) at Rosehill on Saturday week.
The Listed WJ McKell Cup (2400m) is at the same venue two weeks later with the Listed Winter Cup (2400m), also at Rosehill, in June.