It will be straight onto the Metropolitan for Grove Ferry after an excellent finish saw him win by a narrow margin in the Colin Stephen Quality (2400m) at Rosehill.
The six-year-old launched his late assault on the outside to beat Cadre Du Noir for trainer Gai Waterhouse’s 10th victory in the Group 3 feature worth $200,000.
2022 Colin Stephen Quality Replay
Her gelding with co-trainer Adrian Bott will likely back up in the Group 1 Metropolitan over the same distance next Saturday.
“That’s most likely. We wanted to see him tick that distance box today and I think he had done that very well,” Bott said.
“I know he’s had a while between runs coming here today but he had a really good foundation and a good lead-up prior to that.
“We came here with that in mind, that intention, that we’d leave that option open and I think off what we saw today it’s worthwhile.”
Bott would like to see his stayer settle a little more next weekend.
“As you saw in the first few furlongs, he can be a little bit keen in patches and it took a little while for Tim (Clark) to get him to settle,” he said.
“But once he did, he found a lovely rhythm and that really helped and that was probably the difference in the end.”
It was Grove Ferry’s first trip over 2400m and – despite Bott identifying areas he can improve – he was happy with the performance.
“He’s a tough horse. It was good to see him put his head in front today because we’ve had him about 12 months now and he hasn’t been able to do that for us,” he said.
“Maybe getting out in trip has been the key. It was his first time over this distance for us, so that was the only unknown going here today.”
Clark was also impressed with the way Grove Ferry finished given his quirks.
“He’s not the easiest horse to ride. He can get pretty strong,” he said.
“I’ve ridden him work once and it was a bit of a nightmare. He’s done a good job.
“He was five weeks between runs up to the 2400m and was really strong on the line. Good signs.”
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