Alabama Lass winning a race at Taupō in September.
Alabama Lass’ chances of winning our greatest sprint race improved significantly yesterday without the star filly even leaving her stable.
Because after a “recount” of her likely handicap for the $700,000 Sistema Railway at Ellerslie on January 25, that Group 1 event has become the main focus of her summer.
Alabama Lass hasn’t raced since finishing second to Captured By Love in the NZ 1000 Guineas at Riccarton last month, and while she extended to 1600m that day, co-trainer Ken Kelso and anybody else with an eye for a horse knows her best work will be at 1200m.
That made the Railway the logical target to secure her maiden Group 1, but there was something about the indicative handicaps for the race that was bothering Kelso, and digging deeper into them allowed him to find the gold nugget he was hoping for.
“NZTR [New Zealand Thoroughbred Racing] put out the likely handicaps for the Railway to try [to] give trainers a guide as to what their horses would be carrying,” explains Kelso.
“Initially when I read them, I thought she sounded a bit close in the handicaps to horses like Bonny Lass and Skew Wiff because it was suggested we had to carry 54kgs.
“But I did my math and contacted them and they did theirs, and as it turns out, under the set weights and penalties, she will only carry 52kgs if she starts.
“I like the sound of that, and as long as she comes up how we will want her to, the Railway has to be her main aim now.”
NZTR admitted the miscalculation yesterday, their team having failed to take off the 2kgs allowance for a 3-year-old in their initial assessment of the likely Railway field.
It will have had little effect on anybody as Alabama Lass was already the favourite with 54kgs, so now it is confirmed she will only carry 52kgs, any punters who backed her early will only be feeling even better about their bet.
A lot can happen between now and January 25, and Kelso and wife Bev have the luxury of watching how the open-age sprinters fare when most of them clash in the Telegraph at Trentham on January 4.
“We can watch them go around and don’t need to make any real decision on the Railway with this girl until after she trials here [Matamata] on January 14,” explains Kelso.
“But if she comes up well and trials well, then the Railway is the obvious target with that weight.
“If something did change, then she would still have the Almanzor Trophy that night – which is also 1200m, but for the 3-year-olds – as a back-up plan.”
The depth around the Telegraph and Railway suggest the open-class sprinters could provide some of the most spectacular racing of summer.
The Telegraph market is headed by Grail Seeker, who hasn’t raced since winning the Tarzino Trophy in September but will step out in one of the special black-type trials at Matamata before the races this Friday.
While Alabama Lass is almost certain to be seen at Ellerslie on Karaka Millions night (January 25), her exceptional stablemate Legarto has no confirmed first stop on her comeback path.
Legarto was forced out of the spring with an untimely issue soon after trialling brilliantly on August 6 and is still on her way back up.
“She has been doing work on the water walker, but we have no firm plans for her yet and won’t rush her,” says Kelso.
“We will let her tell us when she is ready to step things up.”
Michael Guerin wrote his first nationally published racing articles while still in school and started writing about horse racing and the gambling industry for the Herald as a 20-year-old in 1990. He became the Herald’s Racing Editor in 1995 and covers the world’s biggest horse racing carnivals.