Go Deh Girl to get better of Eagle One

AFTER a see-saw battle, which was effectively decided in the penultimate race of last season, the Anthony Nunes-Jason DaCosta rivalry has reared its head two meets into the new year with importees GO DEH GIRL and EAGLE ONE squaring off for their respective barns in Saturday's overnight allowance at six and a half furlongs.

EAGLE ONE marked his six-month get-out-of-jail return to open overnight-allowance company on Boxing Day, having famously won a grade-one race last June, the seven-furlong Eros Trophy, beating stablemate KING ARTHUR and FATHER PATRICK.

Having skipped open allowance for that victory, the conditions treated the grade-one event as an 'open-allowance' win, another of which EAGLE ONE did not win in six months, effectively making the United States-bred eligible to return to overnight allowance, two classes lower than his grade-one win.

On Boxing day, EAGLE ONE showed just how comfortable he is at overnight allowance, chasing home lightning-fast course specialist, PATRIARCH, who won in 57.1 at five furlongs straight. EAGLE ONE was beaten by only a length and a half while sharing topweight 126lb with the speedster.

GO DEH GIRL should have been in the event but was announced as a very late non-runner, her services not needed, after Nunes pulled off a stunning title-defence victory with the filly GOLDEN WATTLE, who scored an 11-1 upset win in the $4 million Jamaica Two-Year-Old Stakes, putting to bed DaCosta's challenge to deny him three consecutive trainers' crowns.

Though five-year-old EAGLE ONE campaigned among grade-one and open-allowance horses for the last six months of 2021, much of his time was either spent as a pacesetter in longer races for his stablemates or he found himself woefully outsped at shorter distances by genuine sprinters.

Returning at six and a half against GO DEH GIRL, who won a conditional overnight allowance event at five furlongs round on December 19, middle-distance specialist EAGLE ONE's back class makes him very hard to beat.

EAGLE ONE's game is to dominate the pace against slower runners in middle-distance races. On November 27, he ran off the first five and a half furlongs in a seven-and-a-half open allowance but was brushed aside by EROY, who stayed on to beat FURTHER AND BEYOND.

Though GO DEH GIRL's last two wins were on the respective five-furlong courses, she has tactical speed, losing at seven furlongs to NUCLEAR NOON last May and at a mile to LURE OF LUCY in October.

Prior to beating ONE DON, clocking 59.3 for five furlongs round on December 19, GO DEH GIRL lost an open overnight allowance, at five and a half, in a driving finish to down-in-class GOD OF LOVE, beaten a half-length by 1:06.1 on November 28.

GO DEH GIRL has improved since fitted with the figure eight last August and should get the trip, running seven pounds lighter than EAGLE ONE. After outbattling GO DEH GIRL, GOD OF LOVE returned on Boxing Day to charge at FATHER PATRICK in grade one, losing by a half-length to the 1:05.4 winner, confirming the 1:06.0 from his previous race.

Nunes could have multiplied his filly's chances to topple DaCosta's topweight gelding by calling in a claiming rider but, bah, his title is not at stake on Saturday.