Allen hopes to continue group 1 Randwick winning run
Australian Derby-winning jockey John Allen returns to Randwick, his happy group 1 hunting ground, for just two rides on Saturday, but with high hopes of taking home another trophy with Yonce or Secret Glamour.
Allen has won group 1 races at the past three Championships from just eight rides, earning more than $3 million in prizemoney at Randwick.
John Allen will look to grow his Championships haul at Randwick on Saturday.Credit:Getty
He has won the past two Australian Derbies with Explosive Jack and Hitotsu, and has fond memories of Kenedna winning the Queen Of The Turf three years ago.
“It was the race after Winx’s farewell, it was just a great day to be at the races,” Allen said. “I have been lucky that when I came up there I have had the right rides, and it’s similar on weekend.”
Allen will chase a second Queen Of The Turf on the unbeaten Yonce, which will look to go from a Mornington maiden in December to group 1 winner in one preparation and seven starts.
“It’s a big jump in class, especially being weight-for-age, but she is a very progressive horse and I think she is up to it,” Allen said.
“She has been winning fairly easily in Melbourne and has quite a deal of class. I think it’s the right time to give her a chance against these type of horses.”
Yonce was bought out of New Zealand and has only been on a slow track once, when she came from last to round up the promising Gentleman Roy and went away for a three-length win at Flemington.
“To be fair we don’t know how she will go up in this grade or on the wet track, but the reports I have heard out of New Zealand are that she loved the heavy ground in a trial over there,” Allen said.
“That win on the slow was probably the best of her career, so I think she will be right on ground and give a good sight.”
Allen has built a reputation of being a great classics jockey since arriving from Ireland, winning nine Derbies in Australia, but he has never won an oaks. He will be out to rectify that in the Australian Oaks on Secret Glamour, which races in the same colours as Kenedna.
The Sebring filly is unwanted in betting after dropping out on the heavy track in the Adrian Knox Stakes, but she had excuses as she got on the wrong leg coming around the hm turn.
“She was disappointing, there is no hiding that,” Allen said. “We really thought she would stamp herself one of the favourites for the Oaks in that race.
“It was all going to plan until the 600m mark, when I thought I was going as well as anything, but I pulled out wide, instead, following the winner [Honeycreeper], and she lost her way on the turn. She is better than that, and I think she will run the trip.”
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