Lord Stakes 2015: Precious Gem out to land first stakes win

Precious Gem has been sent to trainer Henry Dwyer to try to break through for a stakes win.

And Dwyer hopes that will come as soon as Saturday when she has her second start for his stable in the Listed Lord Stakes (1700m) at Caulfield.

Formerly trained by Gwenda Johnstone at Echuca, Precious Gem has two Group placings to her credit including a close second in this season’s Group Two Let’s Elope Stakes.

She is second favourite for the Lord Stakes behind Tashbeeh and Dwyer believes it’s a good opportunity for the mare who won her first start for the stable earlier this month.

“That was the brief when I took over the mare. We needed to win a stakes race with her,” Dwyer said.

“She’s had stakes placings but hasn’t cracked it yet. We just tried to identify the weakest stakes race we could and it’s pretty important for her residual value for a nice mare like her to have a stakes win, not just the lower black type.”

Precious Gem was transferred to Dwyer after finishing down the track in the Summoned Stakes at Sandown last month.

“The owners are just keen to try her in a city stable, just because she had been trained in a country environment all her life,” Dwyer said.

“They wanted to see if they could get her a bit more stimulated and a bit keener after a disappointing run at Sandown.”

Precious Gem made an impressive debut for Dwyer at Flemington on December 12, racing to a three-quarter length win in a 1400m open handicap to take her overall record to six wins and nine placings from 31 starts.

“She’s in similar, if not better condition than she was then,” Dwyer said.

“She galloped really well on Tuesday and there’s no signs that she’s not going to do what she did first-up.”

Dwyer has tinkered with Precious Gem’s gear, replacing blinkers with a visor.

A visor provides more peripheral vision than blinkers and the trainer hopes that will help the mare jump away cleanly as she tends to dwell a bit at the start and miss the kick by half a length.

“We haven’t tried her with them, we’re just hoping for a one per center,” he said.

 

Article from JustHorseRacing.com.au

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