The Big Dance: Sue Grills worried country trainers like herself will be shut out of lucrative race

The veteran trainer is unsure how "any of use [in the country] are actually gonna get a chance to have a crack at it".

Grills said it was a "shame" the annual race - to be staged over 1600m at Royal Randwick on Melbourne Cup day - was not "restricted to country-owner horses".

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The Big Dance - reserved for the winners of 25 country cup races - was "a great idea, but a bit disappointing", she said.

She added: "You look up here now, you've got provincial trainers at Tamworth every meeting.

"Scone and Muswellbrook, you've got Gai Waterhouse, [Peter and Paul] Snowden - they're all going there. So, it makes it really hard on us smaller guys."

Grills was speaking after she trained four-year-old mare My Gem to a maiden victory, at Tamworth on Friday.

Ridden by apprentice Casey Waddell, My Gem powered home to beat the Gavin Groth-trained Tropic Sands (Matthew Palmer) by half a length - with the Tammy Boyd-trained Electric Daisy (Daniel Northey) a length and a half away in third place.

My Gem paid $8 for the win (NSW TAB fixed odds). It was her 12th start.

"I was very happy with that," Grills said of the win. "She's been running good races and had a lot of bad barriers. She had a really good barrier today and Casey rode her well."

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