Group Two winner Letzbeglam (Snitzel) will likely make her raceday return later this month following an 18-month hiatus.
The daughter of Snitzel was impressive early on in her career, winning her first two starts as a juvenile, including the Gr.2 Blue Diamond Prelude (1100m) at Caulfield for trainers Trent Busuttin and Natalie Young.
She ran into some issues in her three-year-old season and has since spent time with owners Brendan and Jo Lindsay’s private trainer Lance Noble at their Karaka property.
She made a return to the trials last month, winning over 1100m at Ruakaka, before stamping her mark when beating a quality line-up, including Group One winners Levante (NZ) (Proisir), Entriviere (NZ) (Tavistock), Sword Of State (Snitzel), and Coventina Bay (NZ) (Shamexpress) in her 1050m trial at Rotorua on Saturday.
Noble was duly impressed with her performance and he is eyeing her raceday return later this month.
“It was quite rewarding,” he said. “She had won a trial at Ruakaka 10 days prior to that and it was nice to see her compete against some pretty talented horses, and she went really well.
“There is an open 1200m at Pukekohe in a fortnight. We will probably go there and then after that we will make a decision whether she goes to Brisbane, but she will have to run well.
“The Dane Ripper (1400m) is a Group Two fillies and mares race. There are a couple of lead-up races and something like that might be her main target.”
Noble said it has been a long process to get the four-year-old back to the races.
“She has been off the scene for a little while. She won the Blue Diamond Prelude as a two-year-old and as a spring three-year-old she didn’t quite come up,” he said.
“She came home from Australia. She had some feet issues and it has taken a bit of time to get her back to where hopefully she is going to be competitive again.
“Everyone has put a lot of work into her. When you have got sore feet it affects everything else. With the farrier and vets, we have got her feet right, which has helped out everywhere else.
“We don’t want to get too far ahead of ourselves. It has been a long time since she has been to the races, but if she can compete really well at Pukekohe then we might look further afield.”
Noble was also pleased with stablemate Beldarra’s runner-up effort over 1215m at Rotorua on Saturday.
“She had a bit of a cold 10 days earlier so we had a little hiccup in her prep. I thought her run was good,” he said.
“We are probably heading to the Cambridge Breeders’ Stakes (Gr.3, 1200m) with her as it is a Group race, and it is the last for the three-year-olds.
“Her form over 1200m has been pretty solid and she didn’t get beaten by much on Saturday, so we were happy enough with that.”
