Racing: Stewards help Snowden win feature Rosehill event

SYDNEY - Less than an hour before Dysphonia raced to victory in the Festival Stakes, Peter Snowden tried unsuccessfully to withdraw her from the Rosehill feature on Saturday.

After a heavy downpour midway through the card, Sydney's premier trainer tried to scratch Dysphonia believing she was unsuited on a wet track.

However, chief steward Ray Murrihy denied the application as the track was rated slow as it had been at official scratching time on Saturday morning.

The decision turned out to be perfect as Dysphonia put herself in the right spot, leading on the fence, and was never headed to claim her first stakes success.

Snowden will now press on to the Villiers Stakes (1600m) in two weeks with Dysphonia ($16), as well as Parthian ($2.30 fav) who sat outside his stablemate and battled on in the straight to finish fourth.

"Honestly, at the start of this preparation we set Dysphonia for the Myer Stakes thinking she had a really good chance," Snowden said on Saturday.

"She put together three strong wins in Melbourne last time in, she won first-up this preparation and then struck two wet tracks and just went disgraceful so we abandoned plans down there.

"I held off from scratching this morning thinking the track might get better and better. It looked like it was going to do that and just before the race it poured again."

"We thought we would bring her back here and look at a listed race over the Christmas period.

"This race and the Villiers were the two races we had in mind."

The track was upgraded from a slow (7) early in the meeting to a slow (6) and downgraded to a 7 again after the Listed Festival Stakes (1500m).

Dysphonia, ridden by Tommy Berry, defeated the Gai Waterhouse-trained Stratofortress ($4.40) who turned in a top performance in his first start since winning the Newcastle Gold Cup (2400m) on September 16.

He will get his chance for revenge over Dysphonia at Randwick in two weeks. "He's going to the Villiers, and he was a moral beaten today," Waterhouse said.

- AAP