Racing: Mustang Valley to line up for rare feat

Mustang Valley. Photo / Trish Dunell

Mustang Valley will try to follow in the giant hoofprints of one of New Zealand’s iconic mares when she starts favourite in the last Group 1 race of the thoroughbred season at Pukekohe today.

The talented mare is the $2.50 top elect for the $300,000 NZ Breeders Stakes and the fact she is even in the race is a racing rarity these days as just seven days ago she was fifth in the A$3 million Doncaster on a heavy track at Randwick.

Kiwi horses contesting Group 1 races here and in Australia the next weekend are rare enough; mares attempting it the other way around could be named on one hand.

The most famous to try something similar, and successfully, was Empire Rose.

Empire Rose raced five times in 38 days in New Zealand in late 1987, popped over the Tasman a week later to run second to Kensei in the Melbourne Cup and then 11 days later won the New Zealand Cup at Riccarton.

For good measure, just 17 days later, she raced over 1600m at Te Rapa, and that explosion of racing clearly didn’t bother her, as the next year, she returned to Melbourne to beat Vo Rouge in the MacKinnon, and three days later won the Melbourne Cup.

Mustang Valley is no Empire Rose but she is the best-performed mare in today’s race, and while Pukekohe was back to a soft 5 yesterday, the wetter the better for her.

All four of her career wins have come on a heavy surface, and a wet track would negate her wide draw.

She meets a mixed bunch of good fillies and mares taking advantage of one of the easier Group 1 targets for the season, with much of the interest around the unbeaten Pearl Of Alsace and fillies Skew Wiff and Mazzolino.

Skew Wiff pushed Legarto close here in the Eight Carat Stakes on Boxing Day, while three starts ago Mazzolino beat Pennyweka, who has since won the NZ Oaks and will be one of the favourites for today’s A$1 million Australian Oaks at Randwick.

Rain this week has made Randwick heavy, with little confidence it will improve into the soft range, but that won’t hinder New Zealand’s two Oaks representatives Pennyweka or Polygon, with both having won on wet tracks.

So, too, have their key Australian rivals in Pavitra, Fireburn and Arts, so the Oaks will come down to who can cop the 2400m on a testing track and both Kiwi fillies would seem suited to that sort of scrap.

Another outstanding Kiwi mare who may not be at her best if Randwick is heavy is Levante, one of the favourites for the A$1m Queen Of The Turf in what is likely to be her last start for trainers Ken and Bev Kelso before she is sold at auction in May.

Levante has been a pronounced drifter since the final field was declared, with the Group 1 1600m coming up stronger than many expected, and while she can win, the better the track, the better her chances.

Karaka Million runner-up Ethereal Star also makes her Australian debut in a A$1 million juvenile fillies race today.