Allpress eager for Ascot date

Wanganui jockey Lisa Allpress is eager to saddle up against the best female riders in the world at Ascot in England in August.

The 37-year-old has been named in the Girls' Team for the 2013 Dubai Duty Free Shergar Cup at Ascot on August 10.The team includes Rosie Napravnik, of the US.

Napravnik, 25, is the top ranked female rider in the US, having finished eighth in the jockeys' earnings list last year as well as winning the 2012 Kentucky Oaks on Believe You Can and the Breeders' Cup Juvenile on Shanghai Bobby.

In the Kentucky Derby Napravnik finished fifth on Mylute and rode a double - both Grade Two winners - at Churchill Downs over the same weekend.

Mother of two Allpress was the first female to pass 1000 winners in New Zealand. She won the New Zealand premiership last season with 159 winners. She was second with 145 the year before. She has ridden over 90 group and stakes winners and will take up a three-month contract in Singapore. She is the fourth Kiwi rider to chalk up 100 wins this season and sits fourth on the national premiership with 10 weeks of the season to run.

"It is a fantastic opportunity. I have always wanted to go to England ... and to go there and ride at Ascot, well that is just so wonderful," Allpress said.

Britain's best, Hayley Turner, 30, a Dubai Duty Free Shergar Cup regular who has ridden four winners in the competition in the past, will captain the Girls Team.

"I'm really looking forward to captaining the Girls Team again in an event I always enjoy and hopefully we can win it this year," Turner said.

Head of international racing at Ascot, Nick Smith, was particularly pleased Allpress had been included.

"We set the bar really high in 2012 with our first all female team, with Chantal Sutherland and Emma-Jayne Wilson [top US jockeys] competing alongside Hayley. So we are particularly pleased to have arguably the two outstanding riders in their countries - of any sex - in Rosie and Lisa, joining Hayley this year," Smith said.