Tuesday, 28 January 2025: We look at how the Blue Diamond Previews stack up, against each other and against history.

MY GLADIOLA winning the Sportsbet Blue Diamond Preview (F)(Chute)

By the raw rating, we have a new 'best' two-year-old in the form of My Gladiola , who won the Blue Diamond Preview (Fillies) in impressive fashion, running to 109 on the Racing & Sports scale.

While many (R&S included) that Wodeton  is the best two-year-old in the country, he's technically rated 103, but did it with sectionals and improvement that have us confidently saying he's a lot better than that, our indicative mark up suggesting he could be around 119 in the near future.

The consensus was the fillies heat looked much stronger than the colts and geldings on paper, not just from the raced brigade but also those off the trials, which My Gladiola was, and that came to fruition with the girls clearly out rating the boys by every metric.

My Gladiola ran a full second, some 6.5 lengths faster, than Shining Smile won the boys heat, and the rating comes out stronger at 109 compared to 105 for Shining Smile .

109 is the highest rating in the past ten years for a filly in the Blue Diamond Preview and is only bettered by Hanseatic in the boys division in that time.

The table below shows the past ten Blue Diamond Preview (Fillies) winners and their Racing & Sports rating, along with how they went in the Blue Diamond itself.

Year	Horse	BD Preview	BD FP	BD Rating	Improvement
2025	My Gladiola	109	?	?	?
2024	Hayasugi	97	1st	113	+16
2023	De Sonic Boom	100	15th	93	-7
2022	Miss Roseiano	102	10th	99	-3
2021	Dosh	100	DNR	N/A	N/A
2020	A Beautiful Night	101	9th	101	0
2019	Catch Me	108	10th	99	-9
2018	Lady Horseowner	100	8th	96	-4
2017	Limestone	107	DNR	N/A	N/A
2016	Sword Of Light	107	DNR	N/A	N/A

As we can see, quite ironically, Hayasugi- the lowest rated Preview winner by a decent margin, is the only filly to have gone on and won the Blue Diamond. She went 97 in the Preview, 108 in the Prelude and 113 in the Diamond, and is the only filly in the past ten years to actually improve their rating in the Group 1.

A few didn't make it to the Group 1 which can be the case with these two-year-olds who might only have a couple of runs in them, so it will be interesting to see how the highly rated My Gladiola does progress.

She's done all she can and just because others haven't typically gone on with it doesn't mean she won't. She's the deserved favourite for a Blue Diamond but as with any two-year-old race- there is so much water to go under the bridge and betting into the pointy end of a futures market is fraught with danger.

SHINING SMILE winning the Blue Diamond Preview (C&G) at Sandown in Australia.

Looking at the colts and geldings quickly, the funny thing to note is that there has been only one horse to win the Preview and the Diamond, and they too are the lowest rated Preview winner in the past ten years.

I speak of Daumier who ran to 103 winning the Preview, then dipping to 100 in the Prelude before going 111 to win the Diamond.

As mentioned prior, Hanseatic is the best Preview winner (boys and girls combined) in the past ten years at 110, a rating he matched in the Prelude before going 114 in the Diamond but just missing Tagaloa.

Shining Smile at 105 is in line with last year's colts and geldings Preview winner High Octane and slightly better than The Instructor (103) the year prior. He's a very typical Preview winner and they typically don't measure up in the Diamond, but Daumier shows it can all change quickly.