Improved track conditions on Saturday will greatly enhance the prospects of talented mare Showoroses at Matamata where she will bid to bounce back from a last-start failure to set her back on a Group One path.

The daughter of Showcasing will step out in the Lisa Chittick Plate (1400m) and, as a multiple stakes-winner and top-rated contender on a mark of 101, the set weights and penalties conditions of the contest favour the five-year-old.

Showoroses was unplaced in her most recent outing in the Gr.1 BCD Group Sprint (1400m) at Te Rapa where she struck a Slow 7 surface for the first time in her career.

“The track really didn’t suit her in the Group One and neither did drawing one so it just wasn’t her race,” Ardmore Lodge trainer Joanne Surgenor said.

“She is just so honest and tries so hard every time, but that off track caught her out. She needs a wider draw to get into a good rhythm and then she can cross them quite easily.”

Showoroses will appreciate barrier five in a seven-horse field at Matamata where she will be partnered for the first time by jockey Matthew Cameron.

“She is well-suited on Saturday and she’s very well and hopefully it can all pan out for her,” Surgenor said.

If that is the case, the autumn focus for Showoroses will be a tilt at the Gr.1 New Zealand Thoroughbred Breeders’ Stakes (1600m) at Te Rapa after a failed bid last year.

“We’d like to have a crack at the New Zealand Thoroughbred Breeders’ Stakes, that would be the ultimate and a nice way to end the season,” Surgenor said.

“She loves the mile and that was where we were going last year before she got sick. I trialled her before it and she pulled up coughing.

“We scoped her and she had some pus on her lungs so we treated her. It cleared up, but then we had to treat her again so decided to put her away.”

Showoroses struck form early this preparation when she was successful in the Gr.2 Auckland Thoroughbred Breeders’ Stakes (1400m) off the back of a runner-up finish in the Gr.2 Cal Isuzu Stakes (1600m), a race she won in 2020.

She was then seventh on New Year’s Day when defending her Gr.1 Rich Hill Mile (1600m) title.

“She pulled up lame after that race. She strained her stifle and must have done it when she jumped out of the gates,” Surgenor said. “I had to have her vet checked after the race and treated and she’s back to her old self now.”

Raced by breeders Peter and Sherin Walker, Showoroses has been successful five times from 19 appearances and is a valuable future breeding prospect.

She is a daughter of Rodrigo Rose, who won six races including two at stakes level and was also placed in the Gr.1 New Zealand Thoroughbred Breeders’ Stakes (1600m) and the Gr.1 Easter Handicap (1600m). 

“Showoroses has won three Group Twos, she’s twice placed at Group Two level and placed at Group Three. She has done amazing stuff and she always tries and gives it her all, no matter what,” Surgenor said. – NZ Racing Desk