Too Darn Lizzie ($7.50) has shown her rivals a clean pair of heels over the 1400m in the Group 2 Thousand Guineas Prelude, leading from barrier to box at Caulfield on Saturday afternoon, which gave Tim Clark, Gai Waterhouse and Adrian Bott their first success in the race.
As the key speed influence, the daughter of Too Darn Hot flew out of the barriers and found the lead with ease for Clark, while Geegees Mistruth ($3) settled behind her, at least two lengths away for most of the journey.
Clark clicked the leader up at the 500m mark, and the sprint went on, with most of her rivals coming off the bit back in the field.
Turning for home, Too Darn Lizzie was still going as strong as ever, and she continued to pull away from the likes of Zeitung ($5.50) and Geegees Mistruth, who fought out the placings, but it was all honours to the winner as she claimed a two-length victory.
2024 Thousand Guineas Prelude replay – Too Darn Lizzie
Gai Waterhouse represented the winning stable in the post-race interview.
“Two darn fast, exactly. Of course she’s by this amazing sire, Two Darn Hot, that’s doing it both in north and south,” Waterhouse said.
“And of course it was bought by Simon Marsh and Johnny McKee before, Andrew Lloyd Webber and his wife Madeline.
“It’s so wonderful that they’re supporting Australian racing. I’m just thrilled.
“She’s just settled down more, as the longer she’s been in Melbourne.
“We brought her here on Tuesday, and I just love the way she finished off her work. I didn’t put a jockey on her, I just put the work rider on, who just gets on with her.
“She did everything right. I love it when they tick all the boxes going into a big race.
“Oh, absolutely (going to the Thousand Guineas). That’s what we’re here for.
“I think she’s training very well. I think we could easily run over the Flemington carnival.”
Tim Clark brought up his first win on Caulfield Cup Day, and he was very happy speaking post-race.
“I just felt that a couple of her main dangers might have been, you know, a couple of them were up from 1200 to 1400 and could have been a bit of a query at 7 (furlongs),” Clark said.
“So I made sure it was a true enough gallop and I knew that this filly had a good grounding, the team down here had done a really good job with her and she galloped strongly through the line.
“She’s a filly that’s just continued to improve and as I said, they were really happy with how she’d come through her last run.
“She had a jump between, she’s just been thriving so pretty confident she’d handle a bit of sting out of the ground so it was a good recipe and yeah she’s done a great job.”
Too Darn Lizzie is an $11 chance with horse racing bookmakers in the Group 1 Thousand Guineas futures markets.
Horse racing news