New recruit gets Pride’s tick of approval

Mandylion will have her first start for trainer Joe Pride in the Show County Quality at Randwick.

Having a busy schedule is part and parcel of training racehorses but Joe Pride doubts his time has ever been in such demand.

As Sydney’s spring carnival of racing heats up with the running of the season’s first Group One race, the Winx Stakes at Randwick on Saturday, Pride is finding his diary running equally as hot.

“I reckon 27 or 28 of my 50 horses in work are trialling or racing between now and Sunday,” Pride said.

“That’s only two races for Chris Waller but it’s a record for me.”

Along with two runners at Canterbury on Wednesday, Pride will take Destiny’s Kiss and La Chica Bella to Hawkesbury for Thursday’s Listed Rowley Mile (1600m), a big team to Friday’s Warwick Farm barrier trials and will have a presence at the country, provincial and metropolitan meetings over the weekend.

The Rowley Mile will be a chance for last-start Randwick winner La Chica Bella to add some black type to her page before her possible retirement to stud, while the inimitable Destiny’s Kiss returns for the first time as an 11-year-old, on his way to next month’s Wyong Cup.

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“I’ll take him to Hawkesbury for a burl around over the mile and then it’s off to Wyong for start number 100,” Pride said.

Pride will saddle up four horses at Randwick on Saturday, three of them in stakes races including new recruit Mandylion in the Group Three Show County Quality (1200m).

Pride has a great record with tried horses and while Mandylion finds herself in a competitive edition of the Show County against the likes of Doncaster Mile runner-up Dreamforce, Godolphin’s promising Deprive and the up-and-coming Baller, her trainer says she is capable of surprising.

“So far she hasn’t been a 1200-metre horse, I’m more looking at her in the starts to come over 1400 and maybe a bit further, but I reckon she’ll run a cheeky race,” Pride said.

“Her trials have been excellent, particularly her second one.

“She actually ran faster time and a faster split than Royal Witness did in the heat before and he’s a 1000 metre horse and he came out and broke the track record last Saturday.”