Winning Horse: Cuban Link (Aus)

3yoF Testa Rossa (Aus) - Cuban Girl (Aus)(Hemingway (Ire))

3 starts - 2 wins 1 second $53050

Other Wins

1st Cranbourne Skye Excavations Mdn Plate 1400m (2021)

Other Placings

2nd Pakenham Synthetic Kennards Hire Pakenham Mdn 1200m (2021) (Debut Run)

Race Result:

1st: Cuban Link (C Williams/G Eurell) - $6

2nd: Cheerful Moment (J McNeil/L Smith) - $26
3rd: Tramontana (J Allen/B & J Hayes) - $12

Winning Time: 1:26.06 Last 600m: N/A

Margins: Nose x Nose

Winning Trainer: Greg Eurell

“I think there is quite a bit of upside for her. Today was going to be a pivotal point for her just to see what direction we’d go.

“She’s nominated for the Thousand Guineas so I think that’d probably be the next natural progression for her so it was good to see her do that today.”

Another run before the Guineas: “At this stage probably not. I’ll be her fourth run in heading to the Guineas so I don’t think she’ll need another run. She’ll slide into that quite comfortably.”

Amphitrite won this race then the Guineas with Williams aboard: “It’ll be nice to follow those footsteps. Same jock on top so hopefully we can get it done.”

Ripper Rita on Friday night and how she’s come on: “Really good. To be honest I was very disappointed with her first-up run. I thought she was entitled to run a bit better and gave us every indication that she would have.

“But she didn’t. She came out of the run quite good and her work has been solid. I look forward to Friday night. She is drawn out a touch. It is probably better for her to draw a little bit wider than the inside so that isn’t a negative for her. Hopefully we get a better run.”

Winning Jockey: Craig Williams

“Greg Eurell, Jim Mason and all of their team have done a really good job managing this filly. You can see her, in her presence, that she’s probably got the attitude of a tough bloke than a three-year-old filly.

“I was very fortunate for her to get introduced to me before she made her debut. She got beaten on debut but we thought she’d really bounce off that with experience which she did a Cranbourne last time.

“Greg has found the next stepping stone to place her here to deliver well when not everything went her way. She’s still learning what she is doing as well.”

Thousand Guineas - can she measure up: “I’ll leave that up to Greg Eurell but I’m pretty sure, because of the scheduling and the calendar, I think the Thousand Guineas and the Caulfield Guineas, the mark will be determined by which horses come down from Sydney.”