Melbourne Cup: Sensational performance on the cards

Shez Sinsational should help fatten up your punting funds for the Melbourne Cup by winning the Lindauer Stakes at Ellerslie today. Trainer Allan Sharrock is pleased with her fitness. Photo / Natalie Slade

Shez Sinsational has painted trainer Allan Sharrock into a corner at Ellerslie today. Because the glamour mare worked so well last week, anything but a win in the $70,000 Lindauer Stakes will be treated as a disaster by the Taranaki trainer.

Shez Sinsational dominates betting on the group three weight-for-age event, even from the potentially tricky ace draw.

She could easily have been at Flemington for the big one today and comes into today's 2000m event as a last-start winner of the Spring Classic at Hastings.

Add to that group one victories under today's conditions against stronger fields in the Zabeel Classic and Darci Brahma International, not to mention being the reigning Auckland Cup heroine, and Shez Sinsational's career has more highlights than all her rivals combined.

But what convinced Sharrock his superstar mare should simply win today was her gallop between races at Wanganui last Thursday.

"In 35 years I have never had a horse work so well," he told the Herald.

"I gave her five days off after the Spring Classic but if anything that has brought her on.

"She is spot on for this and anything but a win would be a huge disappointment."

Sharrock says he pays jockey Opie Bosson to worry about getting Shez Sinsational off the rails from barrier one, where her rivals would love to trap her given the chance.

"He has 2000m to get her off and he knows what he is doing.

"But it might actually give us a chance to try something different with her and ride her handier.

"She settled in the first four when she won the Darci Brahma last season so don't be surprised to see that again."

Bosson is reunited with Hidden Asset, who he has ridden just once, for a win at Hastings two starts ago, in the last race on today's drawn-out programme.

Hidden Asset was left flat-footed in a muddling 2400m event last start and would appreciate a stronger pace today as he heads towards the Waikato Cup.

It could prove a profitable day for Bosson as he is also aboard the highly rated Wisecrack, who will appreciate the 2200m of the opening race.

Like Hidden Asset, whom he raced in the 2011 NZ Derby at Ellerslie, Wisecrack is being set for the late spring and early summer cups.

Distance racing should be his forte, being by High Chaparral from the classy Grosvenor mare Limerick.