An overweight hoop then replaced by one who had never ridden her before meant things didn't exactly start on the right note for Racy on the Gold Coast. Add an undesirable wide run into the mix and you can understand while the wound is still fresh.

But a defiant Portelli will forge on towards black type with the well-bred Racy, which confronts D-Day with stablemate Sebring Sun (Skyline Stakes) when she lines up in the Sweet Embrace Stakes at Warwick Farm on Saturday.

"I was concerned about [racing on in Sydney] and when I brought her home I put her straight in the paddock for a week," Portelli said.

"I thought about it and she's precocious, she's bred to be a two-year-old, her mother's a half-sister to Encounter and it's just a two-year-old family. Some of these horses, if you give them time and they come back as three-year-olds they're not as good and don't come on.

"She's not a very big horse and I can't see there will be that much improvement with her as a three-year-old. We'd love to get black type with her as a two-year-old and if she wasn't to get black type as a three-year-old it doesn't matter because the job is done and she can go to stud and be worth a lot of money as a broodmare."

Hugh Bowman helped convince Portelli the Sweet Embrace would be an ideal target for Racy after riding the filly in a recent trial and will become her fourth jockey in four career starts.

Portelli will bank on another premiership chaser in Blake Shinn to do the business 35 minutes earlier in the Skyline Stakes with Sebring Sun, down to his last roll of the dice to force his way into the Slipper. He was a $4 equal second favourite in the Skyline behind Godolphin's Exosphere ($2.30) overnight.

"You could probably make a case for him to say he should have won two races," Portelli said. "He should have won his first start and he should have won the other day and he never got out of second gear.

"He shouldn't be a maiden, that's for sure. But that doesn't help when it comes to prize money for the Golden Slipper.

"He needs to win Saturday to get in and we're hoping Blake can outride everybody. That's what it's going to come down to and I think it's going to be a case of the best ride wins."

For all the heavy hitters he has employed in the saddle for Sydney's group 1 day, Portelli has turned to NSW-based apprentice Winona Costin in a major down south. Costin will partner Portelli's I'm All The Talk in the Oakleigh Plate at Caulfield.

"At this stage I reckon he's deadset group 2 [horse], but this is his best chance of ever getting black type in a group 1," Portelli said. "We earmarked this race a long time ago because we knew he could get in light to an Oakleigh Plate.

"He's probably 90 per cent fit and I know he doesn't have a race under his belt, but we've got him as tuned up as we can have him and he's going better than I've ever had him. If there's any bias, I hope it's to the leaders because that's where he'll be."