Golden Slipper Tips & Preview 2023

Looking for Golden Slipper tips and best bets? We dissect times and form to find the winner of the 2023 Golden Slipper at Rosehill.

GOLDEN SLIPPER BETTING SNAPSHOT

It is the Godolphin galloper, Cylinder, that has been installed as the $3.50 popular elect with Palmerbet after the barrier draw for the Golden Slipper ahead of Learning To Fly at $6 and Kings Gambit at $8. Red Resistance is at $10, while the Blue Diamond Stakes (1200m) winner, Little Brose, is at $11. 

A field of 16 plus the one emergency have accepted for the world’s richest race for two-year-olds and Don Corleone is at $12, just ahead of the last start Magic Night Stakes (1200m) winner, Steel City, and Shinzo at $14. Platinum Jubilee heads the rest at the $18. 

GOLDEN SLIPPER FORM ANALYSIS

Cylinder claimed the recent Todman Stakes (1200m) at Randwick, which is always one of the key lead ups towards the Slipper. The son of Exceed And Excel settled on the speed that day and wore down Red Resistance late in the piece, with that pair putting a three length gap on the rest. 

The winner went 6.3 lengths faster than standard benchmark and might have scope to improve on that. He produced the fastest last 200m and it is hard to make a case for the beaten brigade to turn things around. 

Learning To Fly is unbeaten and is one of seven fillies in the race. The Anabel Neasham-trained galloper has won all three starts and cleared out with Facile in the Reisling Stakes (1200m) to claim that lead up on March 4 at Rosehill. The Anabel Neasham-trained galloper went 4.5 lengths faster than standard and will land on the speed for this from barrier 4. 

Little Brose brings the Melbourne form and the youngsters went very hard early on in the Blue Diamond with the winner eventually going 13.1 lengths faster than standard. That is a better figure than what any horse in this race has produced. 

Don Corleone (2nd), Arkansas Kid (3rd), Exploring (7th) and Barber (9th) come out of the same race. Don Corleone was a bit of a luckless runner before charging home to finish a length away. He has the benefit of having raced the Sydney way of going, winning at Randwick in January before a plain run at that venue in the Pierro Plate. 

Arkansas Kid was another that was a tad luckless in the Blue Diamond Stakes and finished 3rd. Barber started as favourite and was checked out of it at the 100m, but it didn’t look like he was going to feature at the business end. Exploring was a winner in the Blue Diamond Prelude (1100m) but seemed to die on her run over the last 100m when stepping up to the six furlongs in the Blue Diamond. Steel City had zero luck in the Blue Diamond before coming out and winning last weekend. 

Platinum Jubilee and Kings Gambit are a couple of interesting runners and come into this with a month in between runs after filling the minor placings behind Cylinder in the Silver Slipper Stakes (1100m) at Rosehill back on February 18. 

Minor hopes go to the Chris Waller trio of Shinzo, Militarize and Lazzago. Shinzo is a last start winner that will be ridden by Ryan Moore. He looks the best hope of the three, who are likely to need to produce a personal best to take this out. 

GOLDEN SLIPPER TIPS AND BEST BETS

Cylinder ticks plenty of boxes, coming out of the tried and true lead up race and we must respect the Godolphin stable, while he has drawn perfectly in barrier 3 with James McDonald to ride. Having said that, there are plenty of unknowns and keen to wait until race day to see if we get better than the $3.50 on offer at the time of writing. The Blue Diamond form might be worth considering and interesting to note that Little Brose accounted for Cylinder back in November at Sandown over the 1000m. Cylinder was a tad luckless that day. With the discrepancy in the odds I am keen on the Victorian, who has also drawn well in barrier 5.