Group Two performer Mary Shan (NZ) (Almanzor) will be in search of an elusive stakes victory when she heads south to Hawera on Saturday where she will contest the Gr.3 Grangewilliam Stud Breeders’ Stakes (1400m).
The five-year-old daughter of Almanzor has placed at stakes level on five occasions, including the Gr.2 Soliloquy Stakes (1400m), Gr.2 Eight Carat Classic (1600m), Listed Matamata Cup (1600m) and $1 million Elsdon Park Aotearoa Classic (1600m).
This year’s edition of the Matamata Cup is on this weekend, and while Mary Shan has a good record in that race, The Breeders’ Stakes has been in Forsman’s crosshairs for some time, and the Cambridge trainer is looking forward to targeting the race with his mare this weekend.
Mary Shan takes good form into the race, having won first-up over 1200m at Wanganui in August, and she has been freshened ahead of Saturday’s assignment.
“Mary Shan is training very well. She had a good gallop yesterday (Tuesday) morning and she is spot on heading into it,” Forsman said.
“She has drawn well (4) and I think it is a suitable sort of race. Hopefully she can utilise that draw and put herself in the first half of the field, and she should run really well.
“It would be nice to make her a stakes winner.”
Closer to home, Forsman will head to Matamata on Saturday with a pair of runners, including Privy Garden (NZ) (So You Think) in the Russell & Yvonne Green Memorial (2000m).
“They were just a little sharp for her, those horses at a mile in that company the other day at Trentham,” Forsman said. “Hopefully the step up to 2000m is what she is looking for now.”
Stablemate Hard Roca will also line-up in the COMAG LTD 1400.
“He has been really good, he just hasn’t had much luck from wide draws,” Forsman said. “I think his run at Ellerslie the other day was great, so I think he will be very competitive again.
“He has drawn well (3), I just hope the track isn’t too heavy. He doesn’t mind a bit of a wet track, but we are stepping up to 1400m. If it was to be very testing, that would be my only query.”
Meanwhile, Forsman has been pleased with the way Quondo (Wootton Bassett) has come through his runner-up performance in last Saturday’s Gr.2 Hawke’s Bay Guineas (1400m) at Te Rapa.
“It was a big effort,” he said. “He got caught three-wide on-speed and I think the on-pace horses did dominate, which helped, I think they controlled that race. I thought he was very brave and he can only improve off a run like that.”
The Gr.2 James and Annie Sarten Memorial (1400m) at Te Rapa later this month looms as his next obvious target, with a tilt at the Gr.1 Al Basti Equiworld Dubai New Zealand 2000 Guineas (1600m) hanging in the balance.
“We will give him a bit of time, he has had a few quiet days since that run,” Forsman said. “At this stage, we will probably go straight to the Sarten back at Te Rapa.
“He is still physically getting there. He has got a lot of improvement and we may see the best of him early next year and into autumn.
“He has clearly got good ability, and we are hoping to get him through to the Sarten and that will be the line in the sand as to whether we push south or we just give him a little bit of time off.”
