“I’d like to think maybe after these two wins we might get one more start,” says co-trainer Ken Kelso, who trains Legarto in partnership with wife Bev.
“We are thinking maybe she could go to the Australian Cup at Flemington at the end of the month but if that isn’t the case then she goes out a five-time Group 1 winner with nothing to prove.” Kelso said it was some advice from his wife that helped him hone Legarto for her remarkable past month.
“She came out to the stables one morning and said ‘she is too fat’,” laughed Kelso.
“She was probably right and it was one reason we sent her down to Trentham for the Thorndon Mile at Trentham in January.
“We knew she needed more racing so we sent her down there to carry 58kg on a track that probably didn’t suit her and in a race, maybe in hindsight, she couldn’t win.
“But it helped get her fitter for these two races and it has been so special to see her back to her best.”
The Kelsos use Bosson when he is available for trackwork and his late-career romance with Legarto has seen both climb mountains that looked unlikely a year ago when Legarto was coming back from injury and Bosson was retired.
“Opie is a brilliant rider and that has been a big help.”
Whether she races again or not, Legarto has enormous worth at auction as a broodmare having won two recent Group 1s and succeeding in the Herbie Dyke two years ago and the NZ 1000 Guineas.
But the cream on her cake is that she won the Australian Guineas as a 3-year-old, which is elite-level form for any filly, especially one trained in New Zealand.
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.
