Gosford preview: Clarry Conners to kick start the Day with a promising Performer

Clarry Conners has had a set of the Blue, White Crossed Sash colours in his Victory Lodge office for almost as long as he has been training.

For a whole year they were painted on one of the jockeys atop the winning post at Rosehill after Belle Du Jour’s famous win the Golden Slipper for former Prime Minister, Bob Hawke, and his larrikin mate, John Singleton.

Conners’ will walk on to Gosford on Thursday with a fresh set in the kit bag to hand over to Jason Collett to steer Gerry Harvey’s three-year-old Day Performer in the opener.

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Jason Collett will partner Day Performer for Clarry Conners at Gosford on Thursday. Photo: Getty Images for Australian Turf ClubSource:Getty Images

The New Zealand-bred filly finished runner-up to the handy Zouly on debut at Nowra on New Year’s Eve before an equally impressive fifth at Warwick Farm’s annual Australia Day meeting behind the even handier Jenga.

“She ran very well at Nowra at her first start. It was a very courageous run as a matter of fact,” Conners said.

“She was on the pace all the way and held her position. Her run at Warwick Farm was fairly good, much stronger of course, but she is a trier anyhow.

“She has good a good draw, it’s not a big field and she has got a good jockey so she should run well.”

Collett is an interesting, even ironic, choice of rider for Day Performer given that she is out of a mare named Light Up A Screen who was trained by his uncle Jim and was ridden in both wins by his cousin, Sam.

Day Performer is a daughter of Harvey’s vastly underrated stallion, Oakleigh Plate winner Swiss Ace who has 12 stakes winners to his credit, Group 1 winner Julius among them.

“They win a lot of races,” Conners said. “This one is not a big filly but she is nice and neat.

“She was always a bit small and that’s why we haven’t rushed her.

Group 1-winning sprinter Swiss Ace is the sire of Day Performer.Source:News Limited

“We just gave her a couple of runs and put her back out and she’s come back much stronger so I am pretty happy with her.”

Speaking of ‘apt’ rider, Conners’ other Gosford bound runner is stable favourite Skyray who reunites with in-form apprentice Jean Van Overmeire in the Signarama Benchmark 64 Handicap (1100m).

Overmeire steered the grandson of champion sprinter Special to his debut win at Gosford, as it happened, all of 1057 days ago.

A noted backmarker, Skyray has won almost $250,000, showing a tidy profit on his $60,000 purchase price at the 2017 Magic Millions Yearling Sale.

“When he has won, he has won like he should go to town the next Saturday but he is a bit of an enigma,” Conners said.

“He goes well and I’ve put Jean back on him, he’s won two races on him. He’s had a couple of jump-outs so he is pretty for a first-up performance.

“He is a problem because he gets back too far. I went through a couple of races on Monday night and he was just stone last by 10-lengths at the half mile and won but other days he’s up running third and jogtrotting.

“He wants a fast run race and hopefully they’re stopping.”

SUCCESSFUL PARTNERSHIP SET TO STRIKE GOLD

Josh Parr has ridden over 100 winners at three tracks and Gosford is one of them.

More than one fifth of trainer Adam Duggan’s wins are at Gosford.

It’s not surprising then that together the pair boast a winning strike-rate of 25 per cent, which increases to 63 per cent when placings are added.

Parr and Duggan go back a long way, to the very beginning in fact, with Parr riding Duggan’s first ever runner – Yo Ho Diablo – at Gosford on April 3 in 2007.

On Thursday, Parr and Duggan have just one chance to add to their collective and individual tally’s namely Gold Invest who lines-up in the Eve Security Services Maiden Plate (1200m).

A four-year-old son of Denman, Gold Invest was kept safe in the market ($6 into $5.50) when he made his racetrack debut in a 1200m maiden at Gosford two-weeks ago.

Unfortunately, Gold Invest only managed to beat one other runner home but Duggan is adamant that his charge is a better horse than that.

Trainer Adam Duggan is expecting a much improved effort from Gold Invest. Photo: Grant GuySource:The Daily Telegraph

“We thought he would run well at Gosford first-up but he was probably a bit too new and he just didn’t know what he was doing basically,” Duggan said.

“He blew the start and he didn’t really know how to track up onto the back of and to the side of other horses. Hopefully that run has switched him on.

“I don’t think he is at his trip yet though. We thought for a while that 1400m probably even to a mile was going to be his go.”

Gold Invest had finished at the back end on the field in his two lead-in trials but showed glimpses of talent nonetheless.

“We have just been more or less trying to educate him in his trials because he had been a bit ‘dumb’ but the trials probably just didn’t switch him on enough unfortunately,” he said.

“I just hope that run has just turned him on a bit and he seems to have come through it well and his work was good enough on Saturday.

“It doesn’t look like he has found an overly strong race on Thursday.”

Originally published asGosford preview: Performer to put on a show

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