The decision to sacrifice a Golden Slipper start in favour of a Group Two fillies’ feature has paid dividends for Team Snowden with Paris Dior taking out the $1 million Percy Sykes Stakes (1200m) at Randwick.
With a win and two placings from her first three starts, including a second in the Inglis Millennium, Paris Dior showed enough early promise to be considered for a Slipper campaign.
But connections made the tough call to relinquish an opportunity to run in the world’s richest two-year-old race and instead chase a stakes target later in the carnival.
Luckily for them, Paris Dior came up trumps.
“She had been quite dominant early on and knowing the fact we couldn’t go to the well too many times leading up to the Slipper, we decided to give her that little break and come here today with fresh legs,” co-trainer Paul Snowden said.
“She’s a Group two winner now so a little bit of the pressure is off.”
James Mcdonald positioned Paris Dior ($4 fav) in a beautiful spot behind the speed and she surged through along the inside the fight out the finish with the promising Willinga Beast ($5.50), edging out that filly by a head.
Lady Laguna ($10) was another 3-3/4 lengths in arrears.
Snowden said Paris Dior was now likely to be spelled and brought back for some quality races in the spring.
“I’d really like to see her over seven furlongs (1400m) myself because I really think she’s got a little bit more to offer over a little bit more (ground). She relaxes so well in her races,” Snowden said.
“It’s testing ground here today so we had to have her well on the money and thankfully we got the job done.”