Mary Shan (NZ) (Almanzor) will resume at Wanganui on Saturday to open a preparation with a sole aim.
The quality daughter of Almanzor will kick off in the Cloudsoft Accounting Systems Open Handicap (1200m) following consecutive trials at Taupo last month.
Trainer Andrew Forsman is confident of a bold showing from the five-year-old, as long as she strikes going to suit.
“As long as it is a looser track and they’re getting through it and running on, as she will get back a bit and 1200m is short of her best, then I think she will be really competitive,” he said.
“I think it will just come down to the pattern of the racing.”
Mary Shan has been a four-time black-type runner-up, including a brace at Group Two level, over the last two seasons.
“She has done a lot and the aim is to try and make her a stakes winner, so there’s the mares’ race at Hawera (Gr.3 Grangewilliam Stud Breeders’ Stakes, 1400m) and races like that are obvious targets,” Forsman said.
Mary Shan will be accompanied south by another hot chance for the stable with the in-form Zanzibar (NZ) (Zed) in the Take It Easy Tours Handicap (1600m).
The son of Zed has collected two wins and four seconds, including most recently in the New Plymouth Interprovincial (1600m).
“He’s going great and we thought we might have turned him out, but he’s going to have a long break over the summertime,” Forsman said.
“He seems fit and well and I can’t fault him at home, but at some point he’ll have had enough, he’s had a lot of travelling and hard racing and we’re hopeful of another good run before turning him out.”
Forsman is likely to have just one runner at Te Aroha on Sunday in Privy Garden (NZ) (So You Think), who will contest the Clotworthy Racing Oen (1600m), while stablemate Moonlight Magic isn’t a certain starter.
“Privy Garden will run and the aim with her is to have a go at the Gr.3 Merial Metric Mile (1600m) at Trentham on September 20,” he said.
During a relatively quiet weekend for the stable, their only other representative will be Richard And I (NZ) (Ocean Park) in Friday’s Saddlery Warehouse Handicap (1300m) on his home all-weather track at Cambridge.
He has finished in behind the major players in both outings this preparation and looms as a leading hope.
“He has come right, we had a bit of a setback with him due to a foot abscess, but he’s over all that now,” Forsman said.
“We dodged a wet rack with him at Ruakaka a couple of weeks ago and he certainly gets his chance.”
