Sometimes second is as good as a win and that might be the case with Travelling Light's formline going into tomorrow's $100,000 Travis Stakes at Te Rapa.
The high-class mare hasn't won a race since her Group 1 success in the Levin Classic at Trentham 15 months ago, although shehas spent much of that time sidelined.
In that same 15-month period two of Travelling Light's main rivals tomorrow have been big winners, with Savy Yong Blonk winning four races and Our Hail Mary five, so punters could be excused for wondering why Travelling Light is a tight second-favourite for the 2000m Group 2.
It is largely because her last-start second was to the nine-time Group 1 winner Avantage, in which Travelling Light dead-heated for second with Coventina Bay and beat home Levante.
"I think that form is every bit as good as winning form in any other race," says Travelling Light's trainer Ben Foote.
"She ran third to Avantage three starts ago and then pushed her to a neck last start and that is true weight-for-age form and this is a weight-for-age mares race.
"Those other two mares [Savy Yong Blonk and Our Hail Mary] have winning form but I rate our form every bit as good as theirs."
Travelling Light has been beaten at her only attempt over 2000m but that was second to a flying Two Illicit in the Waikato Guineas on this track last season and Foote isn't worried about the distance.
"If anything this campaign she has been working more like a 2000m horse so I think this is an ideal race for her."
Savy Yong Blonk is the obvious danger as she has barely gone a bad race in a year and has been kept just fresh enough for this to still sprint hard at the end of 2000m, while Our Hail Mary clearly wouldn't mind a searching tempo and Siracusa looks ready to step up in distance.
Foote looks in for a big day for a trainer with just four racehorses in work, as the best version of Babylon Berlin should win the $70,000 Cambridge Breeders Stakes which remarkably only had four males in the 18 acceptors.
Babylon Berlin is a natural speedster who loves to jump and run and it usually takes a good horse to get past her, which in recent starts have been the likes of Need I Say More and Manrico.
With Te Rapa drying from its slow7 rating on Thursday and expected to go close to being rated a slow5 by tomorrow and the rail out 5m, Babylon Berlin is going to take an awful lot of catching.
"She is very ready," says Foote.
"Often I have trained her light and given her a week off here or there between runs but this week she racing for the third start in a row on a two-week turnaround. I think she will be spot on."
