Record numbers for Slipper/Diamond

Record numbers of yearlings have been nominated for the Golden Slipper and Blue Diamond.

Record numbers of yearlings have been entered for Australia’s premier two-year-old races, the Golden Slipper and Blue Diamond Stakes.

A total of 2452 horses have been nominated for the $3.5 million Golden Slipper, the world’s richest race for juveniles to be run at Rosehill on March 23 next year.

There are 1205 colts and geldings and 1247 fillies entered, a 12 per cent increase on the previous year’s total of 2197 first nominations.

The first nominations are also a record in the race’s history, well up from the previous mark of 2216 in 2007.

A record 1688 yearlings have been nominated for the 2019 $1.5 million Group One Blue Diamond Stakes (1200m) at Caulfield, four weeks before the Slipper.

The final figure eclipses the previous all-time nomination record of 1472 taken last year.

Champion sire Snitzel has the most Slipper entries with 112 followed by I Am Invincible with 105 while the positions are reversed in the Blue Diamond entries with I Am Invincible 82 and Snitzel 81.

Trainer David Hayes has won a record six Blue Diamonds and with Lindsay Park partners Ben Hayes and Tom Dabernig has 143 entries.

The team has 136 entries for the Slipper, with Godolphin nominating 140 and Gai Waterhouse and Adrian Bott 106.

Waterhouse and her father, the late TJ Smith, hold the Golden Slipper record at six apiece.