Superstar mare Quintessa forced to head to racetrack with no meeting

The connections of dual Group 1 winner Quintessa are being forced to make an unusual detour on her road to the Livamol Classic.

A last-start winner of the Proisir Plate at Ellerslie on September 6, Quintessa was scratched from last Saturday’s Howden Insurance Mile at Te Rapa because of the heavy track.

Co-trainer Sam Bergerson and Te Akau boss David Ellis were hoping to race her at either Matamata or, less invitingly, Hāwera this Saturday to give her another race before the Livamol at Ellerslie on October 18.

But with rain forecast for both Matamata and Hāwera between now and Saturday’s race meetings, Quintessa will instead head to Awapuni, even though that Palmerston North track isn’t holding a meeting in the next week.

“We didn’t want to risk her on heavy tracks so she is going to Awapuni for a trip away,” Ellis told the Herald.

“She will go down on Sunday with a mate, stay the night and then have a good gallop on the course proper on Monday morning.”

Her connections are hoping the trip away, then a gallop on what will be a trials morning at Awapuni, will simulate as close to a raceday experience as possible, putting Quintessa’s mind and body under similar stresses.

She will then head to the Livamol, meaning she will be stepping up from her 1400m fresh-up win to her second start of the campaign, being 2000m at Group 1 level.

It is not unheard of but hardly the path they would have liked to have taken.

“We are not totally surprised,” says Ellis.

“We have had wet tracks in the Waikato well into October for years and it suggests to me why it is so important we have Hastings available at this time of the year, because they only get half the rainfall in the spring.

“Or, of course, at Ellerslie where the track is almost always in that mid-range.”

Quintessa has drifted out to the fourth line of betting for the Livamol at $8, with last Saturday’s Howden winner Waitak the $3.50 favourite for the next Group 1 of the season.

Another Te Akau galloper chasing a Group 1 has also had to change course this week after the three-year-old race programmed for Matamata on Saturday didn’t get enough entries to go ahead.

That race was on the agenda for NZ 2000 Guineas equal-favourite Hostility but he will instead head to a 1300m maiden race at Taupō on Friday week.

Hostility shares favouritism for the Guineas with stablemate He Who Dares but his road to the race has also hit a judder bar.

He had a high temperature on Saturday morning, which forced him to miss the Hawke’s Bay Guineas on Saturday, and had not been passed to return work yesterday, so is missing ground work as the racing season rolls into October.

Te Akau aren’t hitting the panic button yet and still have time to get him ready for Riccarton because the most logical lead-up race to the Guineas, the Sarten Memorial at Te Rapa, isn’t until October 27.

The 2000 Guineas itself isn’t until November 15, being pushed back a week this year as it swaps dates with the 1000 Guineas, which comes forward to the first day of New Zealand Cup week, November 8.

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.