Which is how he has ended up in today\u2019s glamour weight-for-age race against the biggest names in racing, like the James McDonald-ridden Via Sistina.<\/p>\n
\u201cHe needs the racing if we are going to have him ready for a Melbourne Cup,\u201d says James.<\/p>\n
\u201cMissing a race last Saturday obviously isn\u2019t ideal but the distance suits this week so we will let him go around.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe are not kidding ourselves, we realise this is a Group 1 against the best of the best and he will be outpaced over 1600m.<\/p>\n
\u201cIf they all run up to their best form he will probably run last but he could do that and still please us.\u201d <\/p>\n
For those wondering just how imposing the Makybe Diva is, Mark Twain\u2019s five rivals are Via Sistina, ATC Oaks winner Aeliana, people\u2019s hero Mr Brightside, Antino and Tom Kitten.<\/p>\n
In other words, a mini Cox Plate.<\/p>\n
While he will be happy to get Mark Twain back to the stables tonight fitter and a race closer to the Cup, James has already had reason to celebrate this week with Fairy Gem\u2019s win at Cambridge on Wednesday his 1300th New Zealand training success.<\/p>\n
\u201cI had no idea until I started getting calls of congrats the next morning,\u201d he smiles.<\/p>\n
\u201cI suppose it isn\u2019t a big milestone like 1000 or 1500 but I am proud of it as we have rarely had more than 45 horses in work, which is a lot smaller than some of the bigger stables.<\/p>\n
\u201cAnd I think we might be one of the few New Zealand stables to have had winners in five different states of Australia.<\/p>\n
\u201cSo we are proud of what we have done and want to keep doing it.\u201d<\/p>\n
Mark Twain won\u2019t be the only big-name Kiwi galloper going to work in Australia today, with former NZ 2000 Guineas winner Pier resuming in the A$300,000 Theo Marks (1300m) at a rain-soaked Rosehill.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe are here to get him ready for the Epsom,\u201d says co-trainer Darryn Weatherley.<\/p>\n
\u201cHe is very well but I reckon he might have put on 20kg since he won the Wayne Wilson in Queensland last start.<\/p>\n
\u201cI just think he has finally matured and he looks like a weight-for-age horse now but that extra size and being on a wet track he might need the outing this week.\u201d<\/p>\n
Pier takes on yet another Chris Waller-trained excitement machine in the unbeaten Autumn Glow.<\/p>\n
Closer to home, domestic racing has a more relaxed feel than most Saturdays in spring, with a solid programme at New Plymouth while Riccarton takes a step closer to the NZ Cup.<\/p>\n
They are expecting a Soft 6 for their Canterbury Belle Stakes meeting, with the three-year-old fillies feature dominated by northern three-year-olds who have headed south chasing black type and building toward the NZ 1000 Guineas.<\/p>\n
The open sprint at Riccarton sees the return of last season\u2019s Stewards winner Mystic Park in a race full of Cup week contenders.<\/p>\n
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\u2019s Racing Editor in 1995 and covers the world\u2019s biggest horse racing carnivals.<\/b><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Which is how he has ended up in today\u2019s glamour weight-for-age race against the biggest names in racing,…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":419037,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4107],"tags":[186,18876,3576,106876,13627,13685,25045,11627,15982,143460,20362,1071,143463,4712,79,1426,143461,5598,8746,32568,143462,16,15,52193,97055],"class_list":{"0":"post-419036","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-racing","8":"tag-australia","9":"tag-biggest","10":"tag-for","11":"tag-forward","12":"tag-james","13":"tag-kiwi","14":"tag-last","15":"tag-looking","16":"tag-mark","17":"tag-placing","18":"tag-race","19":"tag-racing","20":"tag-roger","21":"tag-running","22":"tag-sports","23":"tag-story","24":"tag-tell","25":"tag-the","26":"tag-today","27":"tag-trainer","28":"tag-twain","29":"tag-uk","30":"tag-united-kingdom","31":"tag-whole","32":"tag-wouldnt"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@uk\/115192615726495232","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/419036","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=419036"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/419036\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/419037"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=419036"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=419036"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=419036"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}