Godolphin filly Dipsy Doodle is ready to show her wares in Widden Stakes
Trainer James Cummings can continue the winning momentum of his juvenile team with the somewhat forgotten filly Dipsy Doodle in the Group 3 $200,000 Widden Stakes (1100m) at Rosehill Gardens on Saturday.
Cummings has already trained the winners of eight two-year-olds races this season including Barber in the Golden Gift. The training partnership of Gai Waterhouse and Adrian Bott is the only other stable to win as many two-year-old races so far this season.
Although Dipsy Doodle isn’t among Godolphin’s juvenile winners, she showed plenty of potential in the early season trials and was in the market for her only start in the Kirkham Plate last spring before enduring a wide run when finishing fourth behind stablemate Barber.
But in early Widden Stakes betting, Dipsy Doodle is rated only a $13 chance by TAB Fixed Odds price assessors behind highly-regarded first starter Learning To Fly at $3.50.
This is reflective of the quality of the Widden field which also includes Perfect Proposal, Cigar Flick, Steel City and Divine Glory among others but there is a quiet confidence from the Godolphin team that Dipsy Doodle will be very competitive.
“Dipsy Doodle has always been a filly the team has had a high opinion of,” said Godolphin Australia’s managing director Vin Cox.
“Seemingly, she is getting stronger and the team is very happy with where she is at.
“We like to target two-year-old racing at Godolphin and we have a few nice ones this season.
“Now we get to the deeper end of the two-year-old season it will be interesting to see what pans out.”
Dipsy Doodle is by Darley-Godolphin’s champion stallion Lonhro out of Aspen, herself a daughter of stakeswinner Portillo, and is the family of Ghisoni and Andermatt.
Lonhro, an 11-time Group 1 winner and former Horse of the Year, has been a phenomenal success at stud, siring 79 individual stakeswinners including Group 1 winners like Pierro, Mental, Impending, Exosphere, Kementari and Denman. He was also a former Australian Champion sire.
But Lonhro is a rising 25-year-old and although he remains in good health, Darley is restricting the number of broodmares he covers during the spring breeding season.
“Lonhro’s (race) record is as good as any stallion that has gone to stud and it is rare they then become superstar stallions but he is one of them,” Cox said.
“We took 35 mares to him last season, we restrict his book because of his age but he still gets them in foal.
“His health and welfare always comes first but he’s really well and still thinks he’s ‘King of the Castle’ at Darley.”
Lonhro won the Expressway Stakes 20 years ago and he is the grandsire of Golden Mile, the favourite to win the feature Rosehill sprint on Saturday.
