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Melbourne Cup plans for Rock Diva have been set aside, but a return to Australia is still very much a part of the long-term programme.

“She’s never really come up that well in the spring and it would be hard to get her in the cup off her rating,” Cambridge trainer Tony Pike said.

“It’s very tough to get them ready with the way the weather has been here so we’ve pulled the pin on Melbourne.”

Rock Diva has showed her best form in the autumn and as a three-year-old she won the Gr.3 Sunline Vase and ran third in the Gr.1 New Zealand Oaks. She subsequently finished fourth in both the Gr.1 Queensland Oaks and the Derby.

The Lucky Unicorn mare again hit top form earlier this year when third in the Gr.2 Avondale Gold Cup and victorious in the Gr.1 Auckland Cup.

“She’ll probably run in similar races to her last preparation and hopefully we’ll be taking her to Sydney next autumn,” Pike said. “We’ll take it slowly at this stage and she probably won’t run for six or seven weeks.”

Rock Diva’s record also includes a fourth placing in the Dunstan Championship Final and that race at Ellerslie on New Year’s Day is on the radar for stablemate Sacred Master.

“He’s a very progressive horse and he might run on the next two days at Hawke’s Bay before a little break and then the Dunstan,” Pike said.

The lightly-raced Sacred Master won his maiden at Ruakaka before his Rating 65 success at Hastings on Saturday.

“It was a bit of an ask to step up to 2000 metres at his third start this time around, but he’s improving all the time and he can only get better,” Pike said.

“In his second start at Ellerslie he badly pulled a muscle and he was out for four or five months. It might have been a blessing in disguise as time hasn’t done him any harm at all.”