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Murray Baker and Andrew Forsman will lift their sights with Lady Rossa now she is a maiden no longer.
The Cambridge trainers produced her for a smart first-up victory in the Fresh Market Gate Pa Shopping Centre 2YO at Tauranga on Friday and now she is bound for a step up in class.
“She’s a filly with a decent enough pedigree so we’ll be looking to pick up some black type in her next few starts,” said Forsman, who is also a part-owner of the daughter of Bernardini.The Gr.3 Phoenix Park 2YO Classic at New Plymouth on February 18 and the Gr.2 J Swap Contractors Matamata Breeders’ Stakes a week later are among the upcoming options.
Put aside after a debut fifth in the Listed Welcome Stakes at Riccarton in the spring, Lady Rossa indicated her readiness to resume with a runner-up finish at the Cambridge trials last week.“It’s nice to see her cap off a good trial performance by franking that on race day,” Forsman said.
Lady Rossa sat on the pacemaker Amazing Banker’s quarters to the turn before she asserted her superiority to beat the debutante Miss Foxy Gal and Short Fuse with the early leader fading to fourth.“She’s had the blinkers on in her trackwork and again today and they’ve sharpened her up,” successful rider Matt Cameron said. “She took a while to pull up as well, that’s a good sign.”
The race had no bearing on the make-up of Sunday week’s Karaka Million with Sharp Fuse’s third placing not enough to trouble the order of entry for the Ellerslie feature.