Lipp ignores Cifrado's King of the Mountain defeat

By Glenn Davis

Trainer Rex Lipp has drawn a line through Cifrado’s King of the Mountain flop and still hopes to press ahead with plans to target the $3 million Group 1 Stradbroke Handicap at Eagle Farm in June.

The King of the Mountain was another bridge too far for Lipp when Cifrado produced one of the worst races of his career when a distant last, more than 20 lengths behind winner Steady Ready.

Lipp has only had one other King of the Mountain starter when Simply Fly also tailed off last in the inaugural race three years ago.

“He just didn’t handle the heavy track,” Lipp said.

“There’s wet tracks and there’s wet tracks and he just didn’t like the sloppy ground.

“He did the same at Eagle Farm one day.”

However, Lipp is looking for a sharp improvement from Cifrado when the gelding tackles the Quality Handicap over 1350 metres at Doomben on Saturday.

Cifrado started a $3.40 favourite in the King of the Mountain but was never in the hunt on the heavy track after a slow getaway.

The four-year-old was having his first start since an eye-catching second to the Tony Gollan-trained Hidden Wealth in the Magic Millions QTIS race at the Gold Coast in January.

“I’m expecting him to run a much better race this time and I’m just hoping he hasn’t developed any bad manners from his last run," Lipp said. 

“His work has been very good since the King of the Mountain.“

Lipp hopes to get a better indication after this run whether to persevere with Stradbroke plans.

“I’ll see how he goes on Saturday but the plan is to aim for the Stradbroke,” Lipp said.

“He’s still only a 102 rater and that won’t get him into the Stradbroke so he’ll need to win this race or something else to get his rating up.”

Lipp is also overlooking Cifrado’s second-up record of not having won in five attempts.

“Those sorts of stats are there to be broken so why can’t it change in this?” he said.

Cifrado is a two-time Group 2 winner of the Champagne Classic and Sires' Produce Stakes as a two-year-old as well as a Group 3 winner in the Vo Rogue Plate when it was run at Doomben in 2023.