Molly Brown at Taupō.
Champion horseman Lance O’Sullivan will become a Kiwi stereotype this week: a winter visitor to Queensland hoping for better weather than back home.
But in O’Sullivan’s case that has nothing to do with a day at the beach but more a visit to the Eagle Farm winner’s circle.
O’Sullivan and training partner Andrew Scott have Molly Bloom trying to make it third time lucky in what will almost certainly be her last start for them in the A$700,000 Queensland Oaks on Saturday.
A half share in the NZ 1000 Guineas winner was sold to big-spending Australian owner Ozzie Kheir and partners over the summer with the intention she will be based in Australia next season, mostly likely with Chris Waller.
But before she concludes a three-year-old season that has also seen her win the Hallmark Stud Eight Carat Classic and Ellis Classic, Molly Bloom has the Oaks to try to break her Australian duck.
The Matamata filly was a brave second in the Gold Coast Bracelet on her Queensland debut but a victim of circumstances when trapped wide in The Roses at Doomben last start.
Both races were run on tracks wetter than Molly Bloom would have liked and the fine forecast in Queensland for the rest of the week should only help the daughter of Ace High.
“That is the key,” says O’Sullivan.
“I don’t think she has been ideally suited by the tracks but we might get one to suit this week.
“With a big meeting on a very wet track at Eagle Farm last Saturday it could develop into a swoopers track this Saturday.
“I think ridden with cover and allowed to wind up late she should handle a hard 2200m and looking at her this morning [Tuesday] she is ready to go.”
The 2200m Oaks distance rather than the traditional 2400m could aid Molly Bloom because although she is by a Derby winner in Ace High, her natural brilliance over 1600m trips would suggest the shorter Oaks could enable her to sprint hard before her fuel tank starts to run empty.
After drawing barrier 10 jockey Blake Shinn has options and while O’Sullivan admits the draw isn’t perfect, it is better than another former Matamata filly in Scarlet Oak, who has drawn barrier 15.
Scarlet Oak, who only had one start in New Zealand for Ken and Bev Kelso, won The Roses last start and is the $3.10 favourite for the Oaks, with Molly Bloom the $5 second favourite.
Cambridge filly Moonlight Magic will also contest the Oaks after a brave, albeit distant, second in the Queensland Derby last Saturday.
Trainer Andrew Forsman was happy with the way the daughter of Almanzor came through the Derby and she has drawn barrier 6 so should get a more economical trip, but whether the shorter distance and drying track suit her quite as well as last Saturday will be her question.
The O’Sullivan/Scott stable, as almost always, have representation at their local Matamata meeting today, which was rated a Heavy 8 yesterday with the rail in the true position.
“I think Sassy Lass might be our best of the day,” says O’Sullivan.
“She is drawn well and the inside of the track might be the place to be for at least the earlier races so she gets her chance.”
** The jockey’s premiership race could hardly be closer heading to Matamata today with Warren Kennedy holding just a one-win lead over Michael McNab (116-115) after having led him by 19 at one stage of the season.
Neither jockey has a particularly strong book of rides today but McNab is now the TAB favourite to win the premiership after Kennedy was as short at $1.05 a month ago.
Both men will get a rare North Island race day off tomorrow as the New Plymouth meeting is restricted to apprentice riders only.
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.