Leagrto winning last start at Matamata. Photo / Kenton Wright / Race Images
Trainer Ken Kelso has a warning for rival trainers as Legarto prepares to return to her trip-up track Ellerslie for Champions Day.
Arguably New Zealand’s best racehorse, Legarto will be the hottest favourite of Champions Day as she is $1.40 in futures markets to win the $600,000 HJKC World Pool NZ Breeders Stakes, one of the four Group 1s at Saturday’s mega meeting.
Legarto was the star of Ellerslie’s launch of their StrathAyr track in January last year but was then beaten twice as a red-hot favourite in the $1 million Elsdon Park Aotearoa Classic and last season’s Bonecrusher NZ Stakes.
Both times, she failed to catch a front runner, admittedly two class horses in Desert Lightning and El Vencedor, but they were timely reminders to punters that when top horses race on fast tracks, the leaders will usually have an advantage.
Legarto reverts to mares-only company for Saturday’s 1600m and Kelso, who trains the former Australian Guineas winner with wife Bev, says she has improved since her enormous fresh-up win at Matamata.
“It had to bring her on because it was her first start in such a long time.
“She came out of it really well and worked in good fashion in between races here [Matamata] on Saturday.
“I think she has to be better this week than she was fresh up.”
While Legarto meets proven Group 1 rivals in Belclare, Campionessa, Provence and the Chris Waller-trained Konasana, if she draws well on Wednesday she will be many punter’s multi anchor for our richest ever raceday.
She does find herself in the rare position of not being the highest-rated horse at Saturday’s meeting, as she sits in a 112 mark but El Vencedor’s last-start win in the Sport Nation Classic has seen him boosted to a 114 rating and the highest-rated horse in the country.
While Legarto cruised through her trackwork between races on Saturday, stablemate Alabama Lass was asked for a bit more exertion as she strode out at the same meeting.
“She hasn’t raced for five weeks so she had a bit more of a hitout,” Kelso said.
“She worked her last 1000m in 58.6 seconds and her final 600m in 33.4 and did it very well, so she is ready for this week.”
Alabama Lass takes on Crocetti in the $250,000 Haunui Farm Kings Plate in a rematch of the Railway clash Crocetti won on Karaka Millions night. Crocetti looked a healthy and happy horse when working at Ellerslie on Monday morning.
The Kings Plate had only drawn five entries yesterday, a sign of horses feeling the drain of a long, hot summer and some very competitive racing on often good tracks.
There are also smaller than desired numbers in both the Bonecrusher Stakes and Sistema Stakes for the two-year-old on Saturday, again not unusual as the pecking orders are often clearly defined for those group of horses by later in the summer and some trainers prefer easier targets to Group 1 dreaming.
That has seen a shuffle of the race order for Saturday as the meeting will host World Pool betting.
It was originally intended to have the four Group 1s and the NZB Kiwi as the five World Pool races, but with the Sistema likely to have a smaller field, it will drop out of the Race 5-9 hosting World Pool (tote) betting and be replaced by the much larger Auckland Cup.
One-time NZ Derby second favourite Hinekaha is not only out of the classic but the rest of the season.
The filly was expected to start in Saturday’s Sunline Vase as her lead-up to the NZ Oaks on March 22 but has instead been sent to the spelling paddock.
What: New Zealand’s richest ever race meeting worth $9 million.
Where: Ellerslie Racecourse.
When: Saturday, first race 12.15pm.
Highlights: First running of the $3.5 million slot race NZB Kiwi, $1.25 million Trackside NZ Derby, $1 million Bonecrusher NZ Stakes, $600,000 World Pool HKJC NZ Breeders Stakes, $550,000 Sistema Stakes, $600,000 Barfoot And Thompson Auckland Cup, $250,000 Haunui Farm Kings Plate.
Can I go? Yes, but most tickets are sold. Availability online.
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.