by GRV’s Peter Quilty
The career of ‘glamour girl’ Wow She’s Fast lifted off with four wins in a row at Sandown Park during September/October last year.
In fact, she reached dizzy heights at her race debut – an amazing 27.5L victory in a blistering 29.09sec.
Wow She’s Fast then finished fifth – Melbourne Cup Prelude and G1 Melbourne Cup heat – in successive weeks.
However, a month later, Wow She’s Fast showed she’d lost none of her ‘wow factor’ launching into the sprinting stratosphere with success in the inaugural $750,000 to-the-winner TAB Phoenix at The Meadows.
And now she’s taken-off again!
Trained at Pearcedale by Jacqui Greenough, Wow She’s Fast (Feb ’20 My Bro Fabio x Fair Of Face) lines up in a G3 Launching Pad semi-final (515m) at Sandown Park on Thursday night.
It follows a sensational 29.15sec (Best) heat win last week, which resulted in her price tumbling from $4.40 into $3.50 on TAB’s ‘All In’ market.
Wow She’s Fast (Box 5) contests Semi-final 1 (Race 5, 7.34pm) and is a short-priced favourite at $1.80. She’s undefeated in two starts from the ‘yellow’ trap – on debut and last week.
A win in the semi-final ($10,000) and then the final ($150,000) would catapult her earnings to $937,570, edging her closer to the sport’s exclusive ‘millionaires club’.
Wow She’s Fast has won seven races from only 10 starts – including five from seven at Sandown Park – and Greenough has the luxury of ‘selective placement’ of her young superstar.
But she says it’s not by design. “There’s no pressure from the owners, it’s basically about convenience.”
And that’s why Greenough targeted Wow She’s Fast towards the Launching Pad rather than the Golden Easter Egg in Sydney.
“Tackling dogs in a 1-6 wins event rather than open Group 1 performers was a no-brainer,” she added. “She’s still learning to race, and we didn’t want to ‘throw her to the wolves’.”
However, Greenough remains guarded on the chances of Wow She’s Fast in her semi-final.
“Mobile Legend (Box 3) wants to ‘use the track’, so we’ve got to avoid him early. I would have preferred to have drawn inside the ‘white’.”
Wow She’s Fast has had a few ‘mini-breaks’ from the racetrack during her brief and brilliant career.
She was off the scene between October 17 and November 11 last year due to a metacarpal injury, followed by an interval from October 19 to December 18 while Greenough concentrated on “getting her up” for the Phoenix.
And there was a ‘planned’ hiatus between January 7 and March 15.
“We were conscious of the wins restrictions applied to the Launching Pad conditions, so we just had to bide time. Hopefully it pays dividends,” Greenough said.
There are no specific plans for Wow She’s Fast after the Launching Pad series, but Greenough is potentially eyeing next month’s all-female G1 Sapphire Crown at Sandown Park.
Pawnote: Greenough will issue a four-pronged challenge on the Launching Pad semi-finals. She will also rug Levitation (Box 3) in Semi-final 2 (Race 6, 7.58pm) and litter sisters She’s Refined (Box 7) and Little Bit Sleek (Box 8) in Semi-final 4 (Race 8, 8.40pm).