Gerald Ryan ranks Melito among the best fillies he has trained and she confirmed that rating with a brilliant victory in the G1 T J Smith Stakes at Randwick on Saturday.

Melito (3f Redoute’s Choice – Cloister by Marauding) gave Ryan his first Group 1 since 2006 when Snitzel won the Oakleigh Plate.  “We had it all wrong in the spring trying to make her stay,” Ryan said.   “We will push on to the All Aged Stakes and if she can do it again she will be one of the best I’ve ever prepared.

“I won a Caulfield Cup with Arctic Scent but she didn’t have the acceleration as a young horse like this filly.”

Melito’s win means she is the first horse to qualify for the 2010 Breeders’ Cup Turf Sprint at Churchill Downs on November 5 & 6.

The T.J. Smith was the initial race of the 2010 international Breeders’ Cup Challenge, a global series of stakes races whose winners earn automatic starting positions in the Breeders’ Cup World Championships.

Melito is a Reavill Farm homebred and is raced by John and Divid Rippon.  She was a G2 winner of the STC Silver Slipper and the AJC Furious Stakes last year and has now earned over $850,000.

By champion sire Redoute’s Choice, she is from Cloister who was a Listed winner of the Debutante Stakes at Caulfield.  The dam hails from the same family as Zeditave and she has since foaled fillies by Stratum and Hussonet.