Legarto and Opie Bosson downed Kingswood in the Herbie Dyke Stakes at Te Rapa on February 7. Photo / Kenton Wright
Trainer Ken Kelso is hoping Legarto can turn a sad occasion into something special.
But she will have to end her Ellerslie run of outs to do that in the $1 million Bonecrusher New Zealand Stakes on Saturday.
Legarto is likely having her final start for Ken and wife Bev in the weight-for-age Group 1 before she is retired to stud, heading to a public auction on the Gold Coast in late May.
“If it is to be her last start it will be a bit sad because we have had her since she was a yearling,” says the Matamata trainer.
“And she is a lovely mare to have around. She has such a great attitude.
“When she comes off the track in the morning she stops so the boys at the gate can give her a pat, then she will put her head down and have a pick of grass.
“So we will really miss her but we’d obviously love to see her go out a winner.”
Legarto is favoured to do so after she came from behind Australian white warrior Kingswood to beat him in the Herbie Dyke Stakes at Te Rapa on February 7.
Kelso likes what he has seen, and been told, since.
“She is working very well,” he told the Herald.
“Opie rode her in work this morning [Tuesday] and he thinks she is better than when she won the Herbie Dyke.”
Nobody doubts Legarto’s class but what is also without question is her moderate Ellerslie record, even though it started well.
Legarto won at the first-ever meeting on the Ellerslie StrathAyr track on January 14, 2024, but has yet to repeat that feat in five subsequent starts at headquarters, albeit four of those having resulted in placings at the highest level.
But if Kelso’s eye and Bosson’s feel are right maybe Saturday’s 2000m is her best chance to put another Ellerslie jewel in her crown.
In a perfect racing world that could come with the very big bonus of one more start for the Kelsos, not that Ken is booking his air tickets just yet.
“If she did happen to do something that suggests she is right back to her best on Saturday then maybe we could get one more race out of her in an Australian Cup,” he offers, half-wishfully.
Legarto will have a serious stablemate in the transporter from Matamata to Ellerslie on Saturday as Alabama Lass returns to defend her title in the $250,000 Haunui Farm Kings Plate.
The speedster raced to a five-and-a-quarter length win over Legarto in this race last season before crossing the Tasman to win a A$500,000 sprint at Flemington.
But after a fresh-up second at Group 1 level at The Valley in September, little has gone right for Alabama Lass in her subsequent two starts, both at the highest level.
She pleased Kelso though beating NZB Kiwi contender He Who Dares in her trial at Taupo on February 22.
“We took the tongue tie off her because I think it was annoying her and her work in the last few weeks, and the trial, suggest she is right back to her best.”
Alabama Lass finds herself in the right race on Saturday with most of New Zealand’s sprinting elite absent but with an interesting newcomer in former Irish galloper Cote Atlantique, who is now trained in Victoria by Henry Dwyer.
He won the Seymour Cup over 1600m two starts ago in October and has never raced at a distance shorter than 1400m but Dwyer is a shrewd horseman so wouldn’t be flying Cote Atlantique to New Zealand unless he thought he could sprint well while fresh.
In other news about Saturday’s mega meeting high-class mares Grail Seeker and Provence will miss the Al Basti Equiworld Classic, although Provence is not lost to the meeting as she starts in the Bonecrusher, stepping up to 2000m for the first time.
Grail Seeker though is in the paddock with a minor issue, capping what has been a luckless season for the two-time Group 1 winner.
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.