Winx opens at $1.10 for Chipping Norton

Bookmakers are taking no chances with Winx, posting her at $1.10 in first markets to win her 10th Group One race and second Chipping Norton Stakes.

There were 13 nominations taken on Monday with Hartnell at $8 again the only horse given a chance to beat the champion who had 2-3/4 lengths on her main rival in the Apollo Stakes last week.

The score is five-nil in Winx’s favour with six of the other Chipping Norton Stakes entries from her own backyard including Group One winning stayers Grand Marshal and Who Shot Thebarman.

Winx’s trainer Chris Waller is confident she is spot-on for the 1600 metres at Randwick on Saturday, the second of her four scheduled starts in Sydney this campaign.

“We just have to manage her now,” Waller said.

“She is where we need her to be.”

Her stablemate Endless Drama, who finished third in the Apollo, is at ($15) with He’s Our Rokkii a $26 chance and the only other horse under $51.

The winner of the Toorak Handicap, He’s Our Rokkii finished eighth in the C F Orr Stakes last Saturday week.

He is also entered for the Group One Futurity Stakes (1400m) at Caulfield on Saturday and the Group Three Liverpool City Cup (1300m) on the Chipping Norton undercard.

Rain is predicted in Sydney late in the week with He’s Our Rokkii the winner of two Group Three races on soft tracks at Randwick last autumn.

The Lindsay Park-trained four-year-old won the Carbine Club Stakes (1600m) and the Frank Packer Plate (2000m).

The imported Endless Drama has raced twice in Australia finishing last in the Emirates Stakes in the spring before his first-up third in the Apollo.

First Seal, who beat Winx twice when they were spring three-year-olds including in the Group One Flight Stakes, has been entered for Saturday’s Group Two Guy Walter Stakes (1400m).

The John Thompson-trained First Seal has endured many problems during the past two years but showed her fitness with a barrier trial win at Warwick Farm on Monday.