Sultry Feeling Poised For Midweek Return
- Tuesday, 19 August 2014 07:50
Leilani Lodge is missing top mare Norzita from its spring team but James Cummings expects at least two horses to go some way towards covering for her loss.
One of them, Hallowed Crown, is entered for Saturday's Up and Coming Stakes.
And the other, Sultry Feeling, is tipped to go close to making a winning return to racing at Canterbury on Wednesday.
Norzita, the winner of two Group One races and a placegetter in last year's Doncaster Mile, has been sent to the spelling paddock while a decision is made on her racing future.
Her career has stalled since the 2013 autumn carnival with injuries keeping her out of racing since the start of last year's spring carnival.
But in a much brighter outlook for the Randwick stable, Sultry Feeling will be given her chance to measure up to better races than Wednesday's Ranvet Handicap (1100m).
She is nominated for the Thousand Guineas and that entry alone could ensure she starts favourite in a midweek sprint for fillies and mares certain to be run on soft ground.
"She is a nice filly who should be ready to take the next step," Cummings said.
"It will be interesting to see what she shows in coming weeks."
If it's anything like her two-year-old form, Sultry Feeling is going to be a force at stakes level.
While her only win has been at the provincials, a Magic Night Stakes placing gives Cummings and his grandfather Bart enough reason to have some genuine spring hopes for Sultry Feeling.
Rated the Sydney's best racetrack when it comes to wet weather racing, Canterbury received more than 60mm of rain in the 24 hours up to 11.30am on Tuesday.
It was well into the heavy range at inspection time but the conditions shouldn't worry Sultry Feeling with her minor placing in the Magic Night coming on a rain-affected track as she held down third.
In what turned out to be one of the better two-year-old form races of the autumn, Magic Night winner Bring Me The Maid ran third in the Golden Slipper at her next start while the runner-up Peggy Jean claimed the Group One Sires' Produce Stakes a fortnight later.
