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":148895,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[40],"tags":[68448,68455,2002,68453,46043,47330,15283,429,68452,68454,68446,68449,559,68447,12505,48568,68458,51922,68451,4670,56763,17061,68450,66013,3004,101,37763,68444,68457,68459,27949,68456,56,54,55,68445],"class_list":["post-148894","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-racing","tag-68448","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-prerace","tag-pundits","tag-racing","tag-sports","tag-spring","tag-sunline","tag-tajana","tag-threeyearold","tag-todays","tag-twohorse","tag-uk","tag-united-kingdom","tag-unitedkingdom","tag-vase"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/148894","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=148894"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/148894\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/148895"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=148894"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=148894"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=148894"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}