New Plymouth trainer Allan Sharrock has given a glowing report on the condition of Group One winner Ladies Man as he prepares to resume on his home track this weekend.
The six-year-old son of Zed will make his first appearance since November when he lines up under a 62.5kg topweight in Saturday’s McCurdy Trucks Open (1400m).
Ladies Man was a breakout performer in the spring, winning the Gr.1 Livamol Classic (2040m) at Hastings before crossing the Tasman and finishing second in the Gr.3 Queen Elizabeth Stakes (2600m) at Flemington.
Sharrock has one eye on a return to Australia later in the year for Ladies Man, but first he will take on a pair of Group One weight-for-age assignments on home soil.
“He’s obviously going to need the run first-up on Saturday, but he’s coming up absolutely enormous,” Sharrock said. “I’m thrilled with him.
“Once we get this run out of the way, we’ll probably go to the WFA Classic (Gr.1, 1600m) at Otaki and then on to the Bonecrusher (GR.1, 2000m) at Ellerslie. I’m not sure yet what we’ll do after that, but we could potentially have a look at Brisbane a bit later on.”
Ladies Man will be ridden by Michael McNab in Saturday’s open handicap, with Ryan Elliot taking the mount on stablemate Shamus.
“Shamus is going well,” Sharrock said. “He had no luck at all in the Telegraph (Gr.1, 1200m) last time out. He’s drawn out wide on Saturday, but there’s supposed to be a bit of rain around, so that might not be the worst place to be.”
Sharrock has a talented team of seven entered for Saturday’s nine-race New Plymouth card, and he singled out a couple of strong undercard chances as runners to follow.
“I think Terra Preta will be hard to beat, and the other one I quite like is Malachy,” he said. “He was a pretty impressive winner of his only start and looks like a nice horse in the making. I’ll be interested to see how he goes on Saturday.”
