La Crique close up Ellerslie G2 Avondale Guineas.
It has been a long road with plenty of detours but La Crique is finally back where she is supposed to be on Thursday: a Group 1 2000m weight-for-age race.
The little mare with the long stride will have just the fourth 2000m or longer race of her career in the $500,000 Cambridge Stud Zabeel Classic at Ellerslie, the centrepiece of the celebrated Boxing Day meeting.
Only one of those has been a 2000m-range weight-for-age Group 1 — when she finished third to Prowess in the Bonecrusher NZ Stakes at Pukekohe 21 months ago.
As a three-year-old, La Crique looked a middle-distance sensation in waiting when she won the Avondale Guineas (2100m) by nearly four lengths before finishing second in the NZ Derby (2400m).
She has won two Group 1 races at 1600m since, but why the lack of 2000m attempts?
“We have been trying,” laughs co-trainer Simon Alexander.
“It has been one thing or another that has stopped us from getting her to more 2000m races, even though we know under the right circumstances they could be ideal for her.“
She has had niggles, mainly with her feet and they have tended to come along [at] exactly the wrong time.
“But we have her where she needs to be now and we are looking forward to having another crack at it this week.”
The Zabeel looks a perfect race for La Crique at this stage of her career, being 2000m around the new Ellerslie, which puts a premium on leg speed and she has drawn barrier 4, from where she should be able to sit handy to what doesn’t look a hot tempo.
Add red-hot jockey Michael McNab and La Crique is in the right race, with the slight issue of Snazzytavi and La Crique’s last-start TAB Mile conqueror Ladies Man and a few other genuine Group 1 types being there as well.
Snazzytavi has been so dominant in her last two Te Rapa victories she opened the $1.80 favourite for the Zabeel, victory in which would be fitting for her owners Brendan and Jo Lindsay who sponsor the race.
Snazzytavi gives the impression she hasn’t found her ceiling yet and after she was backed into red hot favouritism last start she may well continue to shorten and that provides punters with opportunities such as La Crique, paying $6.
Snazzytavi isn’t the only last-start winner taking up plenty of percentage in Thursday’s markets and therefore boosting the odds on offer for some serious gallopers.
Damask Rose is into $2.35 for the Shaws Wire Ropes Auckland Guineas, meaning Checkmate is paying $4.20, which wouldn’t have seemed likely after his crushing last-start win in a strong three-year-old race on this track.
Belle Do Monde (R2, No.6) is doing the same in the juvenile event, having opened $3.90 but already being backed into $2.80 even though visiting jockey Blake Shinn has been granted permission to ride her 1kg overweight.
Shinn will now also partner Sethito in the Hallmark Stud Eight Carat and has already been $2.90 into $2.60, pushing out the odds for almost every other runner including her highly-rated stablemate Prosegur, who she beat last start.
Champion New Zealand jockey James McDonald rounded out his latest Hong Kong stint with a four-timer at Sha Tin on Sunday night.
McDonald, who recently won two of the Hong Kong International Races, will return to Sydney this week but is suspended so is unlikely to ride there before he returns to Hong Kong for his next hit-and-run mission in January.
He then heads to Dubai to ride Romantic Warrior on January 24, meaning he will miss the Karaka Millions meeting the same weekend.
McDonald’s mounts won a staggering HK$72 million ($16.3m) at the 11 meetings he rode at in Hong Kong since mid-November.
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.