Ohope can win but competition steps up a level in Ellis Classic

Ohope Wins was impressive winning at Ellerslie on New Year's Day. Photo/Kenton Wright

Trainer Lance O’Sullivan is certain Ohope Wins is spot on for what amounts to moving day for 3-year-old fillies at Te Rapa tomorrow.

The Matamata filly is one of the favourites for the $275,000 Ellis Classic, the fillies-only race that complements the Legacy Lodge Waikato Guineas predominantly for the boys earlier in the programme.

O’Sullivan and training partner Andrew Scott have good winning chances in both and Ohope Wins is the favourite for the New Zealand Oaks in two weeks. Her last start win was so impressive breeding and racing giants Yulong bought into her.

February is when Oaks and Derby dreams live or die as the 3-year-olds step up to 2000m and 2100m trips, even more so for the fillies now the Oaks has come forward to February 21 and moved to Ellerslie.

O’Sullivan says Ohope Wins has gone the right way since her Sir Patrick Hogan Stakes win at Ellerslie on New Year’s Day.

“She is handling it all well and we think she is a pretty good filly,” says O’Sullivan.

“She has a wide-ish draw but that isn’t my problem these days, our job is to get them fit and ready and I think she is.”

The Ellis Classic will be by far the best form guide to the Oaks as it brings together almost all the serious contenders and it is hard to imagine a filly that races poorly on Saturday will win the Oaks in a fortnight.

But the race has rare depth and any one of Ohope Wins, Tajana, Chilling Out, Fairy Dream or Single Red, if she starts in this instead of the Guineas, could win without surprising.

The stable has Yamoto Satona (R4, No 5) in the Guineas and he seems ideally suited to the longer trips in the colours of harness racing legend Barry Purdon.

“He is developing into a real Derby horse and he has to be a good chance.”

Stablemate Grail Seeker will miss the BCD Sprint tomorrow, but O’Sullivan and Scott still have Tomodachi in what could be the highlight of the day.

“She wasn’t at her best in the Telegraph last start but we are confident she will race better this week,” says O’Sullivan.

“She has barrier two and I think that gives her the opportunity to not get as far back. But it is a strong field.”

O’Sullivan suggests Crackercol (R3, No 3) is racing well and has to be a good chance earlier in the card.

Michael Guerin wrote his first nationally published racing articles while still in school and started writing about horse racing and the gambling industry for the Herald as a 20-year-old in 1990. He became the Herald’s Racing Editor in 1995 and covers the world’s biggest horse racing carnivals.