Innovation Girl to take on Northerly
AAP Racing & Sports 02/02/03

Crack filly Innovation Girl will take on champion Northerly in Saturday's Group One $300,000 weight-for-age C F Orr Stakes (1400m) at Caulfield.

The meeting is shaping as a promoter's dream for the Melbourne Racing Club with Blue Diamond Stakes favourite Murphy's Blu Boy to run in the $125,000 AAMI Blue Diamond Prelude (CNG) over 1100m that day.

Trainer Brian Mayfield-Smith said he had decided the 1400m of the Orr would suit Innovation Girl better than the 1600m of the Group One Cadbury Guineas to be run at Flemington a week later.

Innovation Girl led virtually throughout after being challenged briefly early to score a brilliant win in The Debonair, a Group Three race, over 1400m at Flemington on Saturday.

"She hasn't actually run in a Group One yet and we're keen for her to get a Group One win," Mayfield-Smith said today.

"If she races like she did yesterday, it'll be all but impossible for the others to run her down.

"It's just so difficult for horses coming from the back to run the sectionals required," he added.

He said either Stephen Baster or Luke Currie would ride Innovation Girl next Saturday.

Regular rider Nash Rawiller, who was aboard Innovation Girl on Saturday, cannot make the 52kg she will carry under the weight-for-age conditions.

Her Debonair win took Innovation Girl's record to 10 wins and two seconds from just 13 starts.

Mayfield-Smith said Innovation Girl had pulled up extremely well.

"I mixed her feed up myself and she had plenty," he said.

The trainer suggested Innovation Girl could back up in the Group One Futurity Stakes a fortnight after the Orr and then possibly run in the Newmarket Handicap on March 8.

Mayfield-Smith won the Orr Stakes with Special Dane in 1998.

"It's a good race for three-year-olds and she's much better than he was," he said.

The weekend looms large for Mayfield-Smith who will also saddle up star sprinter Rubitano in the Group One $400,000 weight-for-age Lightning Stakes (1000m) at Flemington on Sunday.

Rubitano hasn't raced since he won the Group One Salinger Stakes (1200m) at Flemington in early November.

Rubitano will be opposed in the Lightning by classy three-year-old Bel Esprit, a luckless second to Helenus in the Caulfield Guineas (1600m) in October at his latest appearance.

Bel Esprit galloped brilliantly at Moonee Valley last Tuesday and Geoff Dixon, stable foreman for John Symons, pronounced the colt `spot-on' for his return to racing.

Saturday also promises to be a big day for trainer Fred Kersley who'll saddle up Northerly in the Orr for that gelding's first run since his second consecutive Cox Plate victory.

Northerly coasted to an easy win in a 1400m barrier trial at Ascot on Saturday and is expected to fly to Melbourne on Tuesday.

On Saturday evening, Kersley will partner star pacer Manifold Bay in the Group One Victoria Cup at Moonee Valley.

The John Hawkes-trained Yell, who was easy winner of the Carlyon Stakes at Moonee Valley on January 23, will run in either the Orr or the WRC Autumn Stakes next Saturday.