Trent Busuttin has found it difficult to put a positive spin on Sierra Sue drawing barrier 13 in the A$5 million All-Star Mile (1600m) at Flemington on Saturday.
While pleased with the last start Gr.1 Futurity Stakes (1400m) winner ahead of Saturday, he said the draw took the wind well and truly out of his sails.
“It’s a bad draw and it will make things extremely difficult for her to win,” Busuttin told RSN.
“We needed to draw in the first six or eight to get good cover and do no work in the running. But that has all gone out the window. Whatever way you look at it, it is pretty hard.
“Anyone that draws wide and then tries to make a good case for it is kidding themselves.”
The daughter of Darci Brahma hasn’t posted the best record over the mile, having placed in just one of her five starts over the distance, but Busuttin, who trains in partnership with Natalie Young, believes she has had her excuses.
“Personally, I think it has just been circumstantial. Her run in the Myer (Gr.1, 1600m) at the end of her campaign last time she had come to the end of it. She probably should have won over a mile at Moonee Valley (when a luckless seventh in the Gr.2 Feehan Stakes, 1600m).
“But it is there on paper to say she hasn’t been any good at it, but I went in to it (All-Star Mile) hoping for a good draw and I thought that would help her see out the mile no worries.
“It is very difficult now.”
Busuttin said his mare will now, more than likely, be ridden for luck by jockey John Allen.
“She does have a very good turn of foot, which will allow her to get through those gaps if they come,” he said.
“We will leave it to John, but we will end up midfield or worse from that gate.
“There is going to be a lot of speed in the race and if we pushed forward and tried to be clever and get in she is going to be working, and she is going to be wide.
“I would say we will be in the back half of the field and riding for luck.
“She is as good as she has ever been. I am really happy with her going into it. I just hope there is going to be a lot of speed in the race, which will enable us to let her get home and hopefully a few gaps appear with some tired horses.”
Sierra Sue was sold out of Ardsley Stud’s 2019 New Zealand Bloodstock May Sale draft for $2,000 to Te Aroha trainer Peter Lock. Incredibly, she was sold as a broken in two-year-old, one of a handful of older offerings in the May Sale.
A trials winner in New Zealand for Lock, Sierra Sue was purchased privately by a prominent group of Australian owners, headed by developer, hotelier and horseracing identity Ozzie Kheir through bloodstock agent Phill Cataldo.
Off the back of reading an article about the Lock family’s continued interest in the mare, Sierra Sue’s principal owner Ozzie Kheir made contact with Peter Lock and gifted his son Jamie and daughter Casey a one percent share in the mare.