Ritchie had been adamant during the week that they would not change Tajana\u2019s racing pattern for the contest despite knowing she would be giving most of her rivals a head start in the closing stages. Her longer-term targets are over more ground, including the Group 1 Barneswood Farm New Zealand 1000 Guineas (1600m) at Riccarton. <\/p>\n
\u201cShe is not a filly we expected to be firing over 1400m, so it really does look good going ahead with her,\u201d Ritchie said. <\/p>\n
\u201cIsn\u2019t it great to have a couple of top-class fillies going head to head like that. It is good for racing so let\u2019s bring it on some more. <\/p>\n
\u201cShe will now take her place in the Soliloquy Stakes [Group 2, 1400m] back here and I really think Riccarton will suit her, but it is a hard race to win, that 1000 Guineas.\u201d <\/p>\n
Rooke admitted he had some pre-race jitters as his mount began to give him some difficulty in the starting barriers, and it wasn\u2019t all plain sailing during the running either. <\/p>\n
\u201cShe went in first, she sat down leaning against the side [of the gate], so I got one of the lads to pull her tail and stand her up square,\u201d he said. <\/p>\n
\u201cShe was still slow away and never really travelled during the race, while I was in a little bit of trouble finding room around the home bend. <\/p>\n
\u201cShe is hard work but she has ability. If I knew her better I would have waited and not panicked but over a mile she will be better and when I got her clear she felt very good.\u201d <\/p>\n
TAB Bookmakers now have Lollapalooza and Tajana as equal $3.50 Fixed Odds favourites for the New Zealand 1000 Guineas (1600m) on November 8. <\/p>\n
Bred and raced by The Oaks Stud, Tajana is by Darci Brahma out of the five-race-winning Sakhee\u2019s Secret mare Sleek Secret (NZ).<\/p>\n
From a six-start career, she has now won on three occasions, while also boasting two placings, including finishing third in the Group 1 Manawatu Sires Produce Stakes (1400m) and has claimed over $231,000 in stakes.<\/p>\n
\u2013 LOVERACING.NZ News Desk <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Ritchie had been adamant during the week that they would not change Tajana\u2019s racing pattern for the contest…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":33012,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[20299,31185,806,31183,5432,13116,29804,4225,31182,31184,30949,31178,5071,30950,209,31177,31189,13728,31181,7973,31187,5829,111,43,139,69,31179,31180,3512,6921,30945,31188,8492,30943,31186,30946],"class_list":["post-33011","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-new-zealand","tag-20299","tag-1400m","tag-as","tag-basti","tag-between","tag-contest","tag-date","tag-dubai","tag-ellerslies","tag-equiworld","tag-exciting","tag-favourites","tag-feature","tag-fillies","tag-group","tag-guineas","tag-hottest","tag-joint","tag-labelled","tag-leaves","tag-lollapalooza","tag-many","tag-new-zealand","tag-news","tag-newzealand","tag-nz","tag-prerace","tag-pundits","tag-racing","tag-spring","tag-sunline","tag-tajana","tag-threeyearold","tag-todays","tag-twohorse","tag-vase"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/33011","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=33011"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/33011\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/33012"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=33011"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=33011"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=33011"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}