Innovation Girl to win the Ascot Vale
By Chris Scholtz of AAP Racing & Sports 06/09/02

Brilliant filly Innovation Girl will be compared to some of the finest fillies to grace the Australian turf if she can beat the colts in the $350,000 Ascot Vale Stakes at Flemington on Saturday.

First run in 1969, the Ascot Vale Stake has been very much a male dominated affair as only five fillies have won the G2 event.

Those winners include four of the greatest fillies to race in Australia in the last 40 years – Surround, Toy Show, Rose Of Kingston and Courtza.

The fifth filly winner was So Gorgeous, who upset the colts on a wet track in 2000 top become the first filly winner in 11 years.

Innovation Girl can already be rated a better filly than So Gorgeous, but to be considered in the same breath as the likes of Surround and Rose Of Kingston is placing her in stellar company.

While Victory Vein was crowned Australia’s champion two-year-old for last season and has begun her new season in winning form, there are plenty of Victorians proclaiming that Innovation Girl is the pick of the crop.

She never got to meet Victory Vein last season, trainer Brian Mayfield-Smith halting her autumn campaign after she suffered her only career loss at Caulfield in February.

Since resuming Innovation Girl has stamped herself as something special, winning first-up in Adelaide before her classy efforts to score at Moonee Valley and Caulfield against her own sex.

The daughter of Rubiton dismissed the theory that she was just a speedster when she sat off the pace at herb latest start, significantly racing without blinkers, before overwhelming the opposition to win the Quezette Stakes at Caulfield on August 24 at her first start over 1200 metres.

So Gorgeous also won the Quezette Stake before her Ascot Vale Stakes success.

Innovation Girl ran faster time than the classy colt Delago Brom in the Vain Stakes on August 24, a fair indication that she will be a match for the males in the Ascot vale with her 2.5kg weight advantage.

Something can be made of the fact that she has not raced down the straight at Flemington, but it is her home track and Mayfield-Smith has given her ample education on the course.

The Ascot Vale Sakes will also reflect the depth of the form around Bel Esprit as Innovation Girl will be meeting Able Choice and Titanic Jack, a pair who chased home the outstanding colt in the Mitchell McKenzie Stakes at Moonee Valley on August 17.

Innovation Girl ran slower time than Bel Esprit on August 17 when she won the William Crockett Stakes over the same 1000m course beating
Before Too Long. That filly was left five lengths behind Bel Esprit when she took on the colt in last week’s McNeil Stakes at Caulfield.

Hong Kong colt Able Choice was beaten three lengths and Titanic Jack 3.2 lengths by Bel Esprit on August 17, form lines that bring them together with Innovation Girl on times from their performances that day.

Able Choice has the pertinent credential of having won all his three starts in Hong Kong over 1200 metres.

Titanic Jack, one of five Flemington winners in the field, worked brilliantly at the track this week, winning a barrier “jump out” down the straight by 12 lengths.

Titanic Jack is attempting to emulate his sire Encosta De Lago , winner of the Ascot Vale Stakes in 1996

Innovation Girl also worked down the straight on Tuesday but was not out to rival the time ran by Titanic Jack.