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Sweet Deal out to end her career on a high

3 minute read

Well-performed mare Sweet Deal will have two more starts before beginning a new chapter at stud.

SWEET DEAL. Picture: Steve Hart

Bonny mare Sweet Deal will line up for her penultimate start in the Dane Ripper Stakes at Eagle Farm on Saturday before attempting to bow out of racing as a Group 1 winner. 

Recently sold for $850,000 at the Inglis Chairman's Sale, the multiple stakes winner and $1.5 million earner has been kept in training by her new owners in the hope she can add the missing piece to her CV by claiming a major in the Tattersall's Tiara (1400m) later this month. 

She has raced once since going under the hammer for a barnstorming second to Exhilarates in the Helen Coughlan Stakes when she got back to last from an awkward gate 

Usually an on-speed runner, Sweet Deal was deliberately ridden conservatively after her training routine was interrupted by the sales process. 

"She missed a bit of work between Hawkesbury and that run. She spent a week at the sales then we gave her a week at the farm to freshen up and get over the sales," trainer John Thompson said. 

"As usual, she did a bit well in that time so she went into that race a little bit underdone, that's why we rode her quiet from an outside draw. 

"From a better draw on Saturday, she should be a lot closer. She is definitely back to where she needs to be (fitness-wise)." 

Sweet Deal has drawn ideally in barrier four for Saturday's Dane Ripper Stakes (1300m) and is a $4.80 pre-post favourite. 

The fillies and mares' feature has attracted a bumper field including the resuming Funstar, Thousand Guineas winner Odeum and Madam Rouge, who has been scratched from the Stradbroke Handicap in preference for the Dane Ripper Stakes.