Co-head trainer Ciaron Maher is backing Loving Gaby to improve again when she takes her place in the ATC Sires Produce Stakes on Saturday.
The Phoenix Thoroughbreds owned filly will be taking on her third Group One assignment in four starts and having run solid races in both the Blue Diamond and Golden Slipper Maher is expecting another good effort.
“I think Loving Gaby has come on from the run in the Slipper,” Maher told Racing.com “She’s doing very well in the stable and her work on Tuesday was great. She’s just more used to going that way (right-handed), and she was a bit more balanced. James McDonald galloped her before the Slipper, and he galloped her again on Tuesday and felt she had come on.”
A winner of the Group Three Chairman’s Stakes on her debut the daughter of I Am Invincible was then luckless in her run to finish sixth in the Blue Diamond Stakes. She followed that effort with a closing fourth in the world’s most valuable two-year-old race while overcoming a poor draw in the process. Saturday’s race at Royal Randwick will be a slight move into the unknown for the filly as she steps up in trip for the first time, but her trainer feels that won’t be an issue.
“I think the 1400m shouldn’t be a problem to her,” Maher explained, “she seems scopey enough, and she has a nice draw this time (in barrier five) so hopefully she shouldn’t too far away.”
Generally considered one of the most exciting juvenile fillies in Australia Loving Gaby is yet to run outside Group class company and Maher can’t hide his pleasure at the way she is progressing.
“She was very good first up, she was in the deep end on her second and performed pretty well. Again it’s probably one of the toughest two-year-old races in the World, the Golden Slipper, so she’s doing a good job and improving with every run. It’s her first prep, and she seems to be handling it well.”