KEY POINTS:
Stephen McKee wasn't worried that Sunline's daughter finished last on debut at Pukekohe yesterday, but he was concerned at the possible impact on the valuable filly's attitude.
Sunstrike was severely checked when racing in a line of horses about 250m from the finish, being virtually turned sideways by
a sudden outward movement from the eventual fifth-placed runner, Double Finesse.
She returned with skin missing from her back legs.
McKee's concern is that the incident may make Sunstrike nervous in tight situations in the body of a field.
"It's a shame because she's shown us she's been happy racing among horses and Lisa [Cropp] said she raced brilliantly in the field today."
As much as the incident did Sunstrike no favours, the very wet track was almost certainly the main contributing factor to her downfall.
On Tuesday, McKee said if the track became badly rain-affected he would withdraw Sunstrike and race instead at an upcoming Ruakaka meeting, where the sand based surface is almost always offering among the best footing in the north.
Pukekohe was officially rated as dead yesterday morning, but rain from mid-morning saw the footing almost as heavy as it could get by the time of Sunstrike's event, Race 2.
Conditions were officially downgraded to heavy after Race 2.
"If I'd know it was going to be anything like that I wouldn't have run her," said McKee.
"I expected with the race being the first flat event they'd run something like 1.13 for the 1200m and they've run 1.15.95. She'll never run on anything like that again."
The skin loss is of no consequence and McKee said the filly would have had a quiet week anyway.
The Ardmore trainer said he had yet to decide whether to run Sunstrike again this preparation or hold her back for spring racing.
"Obviously we're going to get wet tracks for a while now and if I ran her again it would only be at one of the Ruakaka meetings coming up."
The race was won in dashing style by Nom du Jeu, on debut from Murray Baker's Cambridge stable.
He is a youngster by Montjeu from Prized Gem, who was a big winner for Baker, taking the Kelt Capital Stakes and Brisbane Cup.
Nom de Jeu was last on settling and powered home to get the decision in the last stride. He looks to have a real future.
* Apprentice Troy Harris rode his 100th winner when Who's Asking won the Alf Cole Memorial.
There was never any doubt about it - the winning margin was 8 1/4 lengths.
* Xcellent's planned second jump-out will go ahead this morning at Matamata despite yesterday's rain.
Co-trainer Paul Moroney said the track conditions would have to have been a bog before the trial was delayed or abandoned.
"He needs it, it's a very crucial part of the plan if he's to be racing in the Stradbroke in a few weeks. Mike [Moroney] is coming over from Melbourne for the jump-out so, yes, it'll go ahead."
Two weeks ago Xcellent had a 800m jump-out in a straight line down the back straight at Matamata to prevent any additional pressure being put on the legs that have kept him out of racing for 19 months, but this time he will go at speed for at least part of the bend out of the back straight.
"He'll go 1000m and he'll have a hit-out that is a fair bit more work because the track will be more testing. We'll be a lot more safe in our knowledge that he's close to the mark for Australia after this gallop."
