Racing's leading lady Gai Waterhouse won both Group One races at Rosehill yesterday when 3-year-old filly Tuesday Joy upstaged the older mares to win the Coolmore Classic.
Waterhouse had earlier won the Ranvet Stakes (2000m) with weight-for-age heavyweight Desert War and revealed Tuesday Joy, who is owned by
businessman John Singleton, almost didn't go around in the Coolmore.
"The owners wanted me to run her in the Phar Lap Stakes," Waterhouse said.
"I've never been so annoying. I kept ringing them and ringing them and in the end they said 'why would we pay the trainer if we don't listen to her'?
"I said to them 'this is a Group One filly, she's right up there with the best in the land and she deserves to run in a Group One race'," Waterhouse said.
Tuesday Joy was one of three runners for Waterhouse along with Fashions Afield (seventh) and Pasikatera (10th) with Darren Beadman picking up the mount only after Danny Beasley elected to stick with Fashions Afield.
While the Waterhouse-Beadman combination is a rare one they proved a formidable team with Beadman allowing Tuesday Joy to find her feet early before weaving a passage through the field and pouncing on the leaders halfway up the straight.
Tuesday Joy scored by three-quarters of a length over the favourite, Doubting, with Divine Madonna another half-neck back in third.
"It was a super effort. She was against seasoned, tough horses but she had those runs over 2000 and 2500 metres in the spring and they might have toughened her up," Beadman said.
"From the 700 metres she started to motor through the gaps and the runs kept coming. She had an uninterrupted run through the middle."
Tuesday Joy's next start would be in the Arrowfield Stud Stakes (2000m) at Rosehill in a fortnight, setting up a clash with star 3-year-old Miss Finland.
Singleton would decide whether she then went to the AJC Australian Oaks or take on the boys in the Derby.
- AAP
