A year ago Gerald Ryan went to the yearling sales determined to buy a large batch of juveniles, fearing his team was lacking, and now he’s the leading trainer of two-year-olds in the country.
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Peggy Jean’s Sires' Produce win at Randwick on Saturday was the14th time he has won a two-year-olds' race this season – amazingly with nine different horses.
“We’ve had a great year," Ryan said. "We went out last year and bought a heap of yearlings because we thought the team was getting a bit depleted, and we bought well. I think I’ve done my job getting the horses here and I couldn’t split them. You just train them individually and if they cope, they cope.
“We gave Peggy Jean a few weeks on the water walker and she put on a heap of weight and strengthened up.”
Peggy Jean was just a $46,000 buy and the first group 1 winner for Triple Crown Syndications.
“They could’ve had a runner in the Slipper but they waited for the next two," Ryan said. "It doesn’t matter what, if it’s a good field, a bad field, a wet track or a dry track, it’s a group 1 and they can’t take it from her.”
Jockey Nash Rawiller knew the moment he got on Peggy Jean that he was sitting on a group 1 horse as she overpowered Scratch Me Lucky in the final 200 metres to win by three-quarters of a length.
“What a filly," Rawiller said. "I rode her in a trial about three weeks ago and I came back to Gerald and said ‘if this isn’t a group 1 horse then I haven’t ridden one.’ I was very impressed. This filly has class written all over her and she’s still on the way up.”
Trainer Paul Perry said while Scratch Me Lucky would be primed for the Champagne Stakes in a fortnight, and jockey Blake Shinn couldn’t believe the colt didn’t win after he was cruising in the heavy going.
"I was going that good in the run that I was just smoking my pipe,” Shinn said.
“I knew when I sprinted he would find a couple of lengths. The only problem there was one with us when we got to the front and she was going just as well.”
Cornrow was third for trainer Mick Price, who has already declared his colt a Caulfield Guineas horse.
“He is just a gutsy horse, he didn't handle ground but just kept coming,” Price said.
“He left it all out there and that will probably be it [for this preparation] but he is a Caulfield Guineas horse in the spring.”
Ryan will saddle up Bachman and Peggy Jean in the Champagne Stakes and is confident his filly can take out the third leg of the triple crown.
“She will like it [1600m]. She’s always given that impression. Her pedigree says not a true 1600m horse but she races like it,” Ryan said.
“She’s going to make a lovely Flight Stakes filly in the spring. I’d say she will go through all the Princess Series races.”
