Patience the key to Smith's filly

By Warwick Barr

SYDNEY, Sept 2 AAP - Trying to match the brilliance of the Darley-owned Parables at Randwick on Saturday isn't on the spring radar for fellow Warwick Farm-trained filly Slow the Flow.

Instead, trainer Matthew Smith is looking for a premium result much deeper into the Sydney carnival than the Group Two Furious Stakes.

The Peter Snowden-trained Parables claimed early spring bragging rights among Sydney's three-year-old fillies when she overcame an inside track bias to score a breathtaking win in the Silver Shadow Stakes at Warwick Farm.

Slow the Flow finished three lengths in arrears of Parables in sixth place after being ridden in a midfield position.

The run, Slow the Flow's first in stakes grade, left Smith with more questions than answers.

"It's hard to know where she sits in the scheme of things after that run," he said.

"Finding a positive, she was only three lengths off them at the finish and the first five across the line are all Group-class fillies.

"Hopefully getting to 1400 metres at Randwick will help her make up some of the leeway but it's still going to be hard to match it with Parables."

Smith is banking on the experience he gained from a 2009 Princess Series campaign with Hurtle Myrtle to help Slow the Flow through her preparation.

Hurtle Myrtle ran second to Melito in last year's Furious and ended her spring with a third to More Joyous in the Group One Flight Stakes.

"Getting through to the end of the Princess Series can be achievement in itself," Smith said.

"I know with Hurtle Myrtle last year I didn't screw her down in her work until the week before the Flight (in early October).

"Sometimes by the time the Flight Stakes comes along it could well be a case of the last one standing who wins it."

Smith has called on the services of Sydney jockeys' premiership leader Glyn Schofield to ride Slow the Flow, an impressive first-up winner at Randwick on August 7.

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