Conversely, while our rules insist on a 60kg topweight, there is never a tendency to give beyond that as they regularly do in Australia. Maygrove stays at 60kg and Five To Midnight drops back 1kg.
Which should see him winning. The short head between them at Counties is enough to say that with even luck the 1kg will be the turnaround factor. Perhaps the fact this is the opposite way around to right-handed Counties should, if even slightly, assist Five To Midnight, who is trained left-handed at Awapuni.
Opie Bosson takes over from Johnathan Parkes on Maygrove.
Promise To Reign has to be respected. He loomed to win at the 300m at Counties and was beaten less than half a length. He should be able to possie up nicely from his handy barrier, an important factor over 2400m here. A handy barrier won this race for Lizzie L'amour a year ago.
Snow Secret deserves some of the money. She got hooked up behind horses on the home bend in the Wanganui Cup last start and was making ground strongly late for a close fifth. This much bigger track suits her better and she has a win and three placings here from six starts.
Love Affair, with just five race starts behind her, takes a giant step up in class to take on some of the best mares around in the group two Cal Isuzu Stakes.
She is not ideally placed under the set weights, forfeiting the big weight advantages she would have over most of the rivals in a handicap, but she is so talented she will be the public favourite to get away with it.
There was a huge amount to like about the winning run of Love Affair when resuming on Counties Cup day. She steadily worked through her gears in the home straight and was still building that momentum at the line, stopping the clock at an impressive 1.22 for the 1400m.
The way she continues to build that speed she should be better suited to the 1600m tomorrow. But it will not necessarily be easy. There is ample class involved, even if most of the leading chances are looking for more distance and are prepping for the 2000m Zabeel Classic at Ellerslie over the carnival.
Love Affair's stablemate Stolen Dance is one of those. With decent pace tomorrow she could be powering into the money late.