“If it got heavy, which I don’t think it will, I’d be against starting her,” Marsh told the Herald. “We saw she wasn’t as good on soft at Pukekohe at Christmas time and I think heavy would really affect her.
“The forecast doesn’t look like that will be the case but I don’t even like her as much on soft. So the less rain the better.”
Inaccurate forecast and surprise Saturday downpours are the bane of punters and trainers but Marsh says if the weather does hold, Velocious will perform to the same level as she did in the first two legs of the Triple Crown.
“She is amazing, she is 200 per cent where she needs to be,” says Marsh, coming to the end of a career-best season.
“She hasn’t missed a beat and we have options from the ace draw. She can sit handy and we wouldn’t even be scared to lead. “The key factor is Sammy [Spratt, jockey] being able to hold her up until around the 200m and let her go.
“She had to go earlier than she wanted at Ellerslie [Sistema Stakes] but she was still able to win but on the bigger track I don’t want her being exposed too early.”
If Velocious is blunted by a wet track, finding the Group 1 winner is not easy as few of her rivals are proven on really rain-affected surfaces as many haven’treally raced on them. Captured By Love is the obvious exception as she won a black type race at New Plymouth on a heavy track, although she didn’t look to be enjoying it.
Still, because she is already a big margin winner at Trentham and oozes class, she is the danger to the favourite regardless of conditions.
Her stablemate Move To Strike is the enigma of the race, having looked something special winning on debut and beating Velocious on a wet track at their only meeting before he suffered atrial fibrillation last start. After initially taking a while to recover, he is back and has trialled well so he could be a real player if he turns up in his best form.
But the field has the depth befitting one of our biggest juvenile races including Savaglee, who won a race at Trentham back in October and has been competitive in the best race all summer.
So if Velocious is going to wear the crown she is going to have to earn it. Earlier in the star-studded programme, Marsh warns punters that Skyman (R6, No 2) is a good each way chance back up to 2100m. There is class about Provence (R8, No 11) who steps well up in grade tomorrow but in a race where the topweights may be short of peak fitness.
● Further afield Marsh will have his shock last-start Valley winner Antrim Coast as favourite in the $200,000 Galilee Series Final at Caulfield.
Trentham’s big day
2.04pm: $120,000 Manawatu Classic, Group 3
2.46pm: $120,000 Manawatu Breeders Stakes, Group 3
3.21pm: $175,000 Awapuni Gold Cup, Group 2
3.56pm: $450,000 Sires’ Produce Stakes, Group 1
4.31pm: $90,000 Flying Handicap, Listed race
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.
