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By Ray Hickson

She's beaten the best of the girls, now it's time for Montefilia to put the boys in their place.

Trainer David Payne (Pic: Bradley Photos).

The Group 1 $1m Moet & Chandon Spring Champion Stakes (2000m) used to be the domain of the colts and geldings, it was thought a filly couldn’t win it despite some very classy ones trying.

That was disproven in 2016 when Yankee Rose etched her name in history and again by Maid Of Heaven in 2018.

Trainer David Payne talked in glowing terms about Montefilia long before her maiden Group 1 win last weekend and he’s adamant it won’t be her last now she’s stretching out to a distance she was born to run.

“It’s never easy to beat them but she’s a mature filly for her age and she beat the boys at Rosehill (in August), and they were older than her,’’ Payne said.

“I think she can measure up. She’s got the attitude of a good horse and she will be much better at 2000m than at a mile for sure.”

Very few will claim a Group 1 win as a bonus but you get the sense Payne feels that way about Montefilia’s Flight Stakes win as he aims up at what he sees as a more suitable race at Randwick on Saturday.

He said the back up after winning the Flight last Saturday, where she showed her strength at the finish running 34.59 (Punter's Intelligence), the fastest last 600m, off a strong tempo, shouldn’t be an issue and anticipates Jason Collett being able to make use of barrier one.

Collett put Montefilia, $3.40 favourite with TAB, through some light work at Rosehill on Thursday morning and Payne said it was important that the jockey got to know her before race day.

“She came through it well so it’s all systems go,’’ he said.

“I’d expect her to be in the first five or six, 2000m is different to 1600m and I’d rather be drawn in then out.”

Payne, with over 100 Group 1 winners in South Africa and Australia on his CV, won the Spring Champion in 2017 with his previous stable star Ace High and while he only has around 16 horses in work seems to have the ability to find a headline horse.

“When you have a small team you’ve always got to have a horse that keeps the stable going,’’ he said.

“I’ve always wanted to have a little string and concentrate on the good horses if you can. We had Ace High a few years ago and now we found her. We had Criterion before him we’ve always had a good one in the yard to keep the flag flying.”

Mark Newnham is no stranger to winning a Spring Champion with a filly, of course Maid Of Heaven was his and jockey Rachel King’s first Group 1 winner back in 2018, and he warns not to overlook Miravalle despite the seven length margin between her and Montefilia last weekend.

It’ll likely be a different set of tactics employed by Josh Parr on the filly this time around after Newnham conceded their gamble to press forward in the Flight Stakes didn’t pay off.

Montefilia wins the Flight Stakes at Randwick

“We’ll ride her with cover, we got the tactics wrong the other day,’’ he said.

“The race didn’t pan out as we would have liked. We chanced our arm a bit and it didn’t pay off, once Joviality got into the mix that brought us undone.

“There was only two places for her on the map and that was outside leader or last and with what appeared to be a slow pace going back to last meant we had no chance.”

Maid Of Heaven was a $14 chance when she won her Spring Champion, Miravalle is at $16 with TAB and Newnham appreciates the pressure being off.

He’s aiming for three straight wins in the race, Shadow Hero started favourite and got the job done last year, and said Miravalle bounced through the tough run.

“I was pleasantly surprised on Sunday morning that she’d eaten up and she’s eaten up every night since,’’ he said.

“I’ve got no doubts she will run the trip out, so we move on and aim up again.”

All the fields, form and replays for Saturday's Royal Randwick meeting