\n\t\t\t\t\tBy Tayla Dyke\n\t\t\t\t<\/p>\n
Listen<\/p>\n
Star New Zealand filly Alabama Lass (Alabama Express) will look to retain her flawless Australian record and add a Group 1 win to her resume on Saturday when she contests the Moir Stakes (Gr 1, 1000m) at The Valley.<\/p>\n
Trained by Ken and Bev Kelso, the daughter of Alabama Express (Redoute\u2019s Choice) will make the trip across the Tasman on Wednesday, returning to Australia after her autumn raid where she produced a commanding all-the-way victory in the HKJC World Pool Sprint Classic (Listed, 1100m) at Flemington.<\/p>\n
The four-year-old completed her final gallop at Matamata on Tuesday morning under champion rider Opie Bosson, and Ken Kelso was delighted with what he saw.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt was very good,\u201d Kelso said of the workout. \u201cI was very happy with her work. Opie Bosson rode her and he was very happy with her work and said she\u2019s flying, so gave us a tick of approval \u2013 we are all systems go.\u201d<\/p>\n
Alabama Lass will fly out of Auckland at 6:30am on Wednesday, arriving in Melbourne later that afternoon, before settling in at Flemington, and Kelso is confident the filly\u2019s previous travel experience will hold her in good stead.<\/p>\n
\u201cShe flies out [Wednesday] morning 6:30 our time, and will arrive in Melbourne at roughly 2:30 [Wednesday] afternoon,\u201d he said. \u201cShe will be based at Flemington, I always used to stay with Mike Moroney, so she\u2019s going to the same place at Glen Thompson\u2019s.<\/p>\n
\u201cShe copes well with the travel, in the spring she flew down to Christchurch and back and she flew over to Australia and coped with the travel pretty well. So, I suppose you never know, but she\u2019s coped with it in the past, so I can\u2019t see any problems.\u201d<\/p>\n
Kelso is no stranger to elite-level success on Australian shores, having travelled triple Group 1 winner Legarto (Proisir) to land the Australian Guineas (Gr 1, 1600m) in 2023.<\/p>\n
The Kelsos were handed barrier three of 15 at Tuesday night\u2019s draw, and Ken Kelso is confident his filly\u2019s natural pace and adaptable racing style will suit the tight Moonee Valley circuit, under the guidance of her Aussie pilot Craig Williams.<\/p>\n
\u201cI can\u2019t see [The Valley track] being a problem,\u201d he said. \u201cShe\u2019s an on-speed runner. Barrier draws will be important, but she\u2019s an on pace runner, so she will put herself there.<\/p>\n
\u201cShe hadn\u2019t been down the straight before when she went to Flemington and she was good, so she\u2019s pretty adaptable, she\u2019s a fraction better left handed than right. So I can\u2019t see that as a problem.<\/p>\n
\u201cI think the race has come up [strong]. Normally it\u2019s quite a small field, but it looks like it\u2019s going to be a capacity of 15, which is a lot of horses around The Valley.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n
Since her Flemington triumph, Alabama Lass returned to New Zealand to spell, and recently returned with an impressive 1050\u2013metre trial win at Te Rapa on August 9, and Kelso believes the now four-year-old has made the required physical and mental improvement to step up again this campaign.\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cShe has come back well, she put on about 40 kilograms when she was out, and has really developed and grown, so she\u2019s made general improvement. She\u2019s not overly big and is quite athletic, but she did furnish up and has grown and has made the transition from three to four,\u201d Kelso said.<\/p>\n
Already twice Group 1-placed, Alabama Lass now faces her toughest task as she steps into weight-for-age company in Melbourne.<\/p>\n
\u201cShe\u2019s got to make that step up to weight\u2013for\u2013age. It\u2019s very hard on three-year-old fillies going into their four year old season at weight for age. We\u2019re going to roll the dice and see how she goes,\u201d Kelso said.<\/p>\n
\u201cThere\u2019s nothing here for her in New Zealand, so we might as well try and come over to Australia and hopefully snag a Group 1 placing. But if she happened to go well, we would stick around and go to the Manikato, but if she doesn\u2019t, she\u2019ll come home and spell and be set for our major sprint races here in summer and autumn.<\/p>\n
\u201cShe was going to have a light spring anyway, so we thought we\u2019d roll the dice, come over there and see how we measure up. We realise it\u2019s a big step up from three-year-old racing to weight-for-age.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"By Tayla Dyke Listen Star New Zealand filly Alabama Lass (Alabama Express) will look to retain her flawless…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":110659,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[40],"tags":[3004,101,56,54,55],"class_list":["post-110658","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-racing","tag-racing","tag-sports","tag-uk","tag-united-kingdom","tag-unitedkingdom"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/110658","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=110658"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/110658\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/110659"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=110658"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=110658"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=110658"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}