Racing: Track won't slow Mustang Valley

Mare Mustang Valley will start a shortening favourite for the Group 1 weight-for-age Classic. Photo / Trish Dunell

Mustang Valley has been handed the perfect opportunity in the $330,000 Classic at Hastings on Saturday.

The mare will start a shortening favourite for the Group 1 weight-for-age feature, which looks certain to be run on a heavy track after persistent rain started in Hastings on Wednesday and was still falling Thursday afternoon.

New Zealand Thoroughbred Racing officials are not worried about the meeting having to be moved again, as it was two weeks ago, but have resigned themselves to the track not improving above the heavy range.

That suits Mustang Valley, who has had seven career starts on heavy tracks for three wins and four seconds, a vastly superior record to most of her key rivals.

Some, such as Vernanme and Defibrillate, have won on heavy ground but their connections would have wanted better footing, while other proven Group 1 performers like second favourite Prise De Fer and True Enough haven't won on a heavy track.

So as a proven 2000m mare who loves heavy tracks and the one who got closest to La Crique in the Plate at Matamata last week, Mustang Valley picks herself even before you add premiership-winning jockey Michael McNab to the mix.

If she does win it will complete a domination of the early spring features by four-year-olds in Dark Destroyer (Tarzino Trophy), La Crique ($300,000 Plate) and Imperatriz (Foxbridge Plate).

That feat is all the more remarkable as most of the classic winners from last season — Noverre (retired), The Perfect Pink, Asterix and the Karaka Classic Mile winner Pin Me Up — haven't raced this season.

Add Queensland Derby winner Pinarello, who is racing at Randwick on Saturday, and this four-year-old crop are the new powerbase of New Zealand racing.

Mustang Valley won't have things all her own way and trainer Andrew Forsman says her busy month of racing and travelling is not ideal but she has far more in her favour than her older rivals.

Even if she doesn't win, the four-year-old crop has back-up in Field Of Gold (not perfectly suited by a heavy track) and the big market shortener in Soldier Boy, who is the lowest-rated horse in the field but loves the wet and ran fourth in the New Zealand Derby in March.