Meritable books Queensland passage

Quality three-year-old Meritable pleased connections when winning a 1200m trial at Taupo on Tuesday.

It was the second trial for the Murray Baker and Andrew Forsman-trained son of Snitzel, who was last seen on raceday finishing runner-up to Noverre in the Gr.1 New Zealand 2000 Guineas (1600m).

Raced by the China Horse Club, Meritable came from last in his heat to score from Helena Baby by a head and has all but booked his passage to Queensland for the Winter Carnival.

“I’m really happy, obviously it's never easy to get back at Taupo when the track’s quick, and make that sort of ground,” Forsman said.

“It was promising to see and I just liked the way switched off and attacked the line.

“I really want to get him to Brisbane so hopefully he comes through this well and we can start plotting a bit of a path.

“We had two options really, one was to run in the Cambridge Breeders’ (Gr.3, 1200m) on Saturday week at Te Rapa.

“It’s just a bit of a shame that the direct flight to Brisbane is the day before that race, so we may just have to go on the plane and perhaps run first up on the Gold Coast Guineas (Gr.3, 1200m)

“That would be to see where he stacks up and then his options after that are probably the Fred Best (Gr.3, 1400m) and then assess whether he takes on older horses.”

Time called on outstanding jumper Zed Em

Grand Annual Steeplechase hero Zed Em will not make it to a fifth consecutive marathon after falling for the first time in his lengthy career at Pakenham on Easter Monday, with connections electing to retire the grand jumper.

Just two and a-half weeks before the Grand Annual is run over 5500m at Warrnambool, the 11-year-old made a mistake at the second last fence of the J.E.H Spencer Memorial Steeplechase and suffered a shoulder injury when he came to grief.

The Kiwi bred son of Zed earned a cult following with 17 victories up to 5500m and bows out with more than A$1 million in career earnings and was acknowledged as Champion Jumper in Australia in 2018-19.

He started in four Grand Annuals and was successful in 2019 and placed in 2018, 2020 and 2021 while the gelding won three consecutive editions of the Von Doussa Steeplechase at Oakbank from 2018-20 and was narrowly beaten into second last year.

Zed Em was trained throughout his career by Wanganui conditioner Kevin Myers and sent to Patrick Payne’s Victorian stable at Plumpton for his numerous Australian campaigns.

Payne said the horse will undergo treatment before finding a suitable home to see out his retirement, possibly at Living Legends.

Payne tweeted: “Jumped like an angel until the only mistake, we admire his bravery, determination and durability. Thanks for the ride, you will have a good home and happy retirement.”