Top trainers have numbers on their side

The country’s leading stable is planning a three-pronged attack on the second leg of the Triple Crown series at Hawke’s Bay.

Murray Baker and Andrew Forsman will be represented by fresh runners Mime and Stolen Dance in the Gr.1 Windsor Park Plate on Saturday week with Coldplay to complete their Hastings-bound trio.

Stolen Dance was to have debuted for the Cambridge trainers in the Gr.1 Tarzino Trophy, but plans were scrapped due to the underfoot conditions.

“It would have been too tough first-up on her,” Forsman said. “We left it until late, but the forecast was for more rain on the day and she’s hopeless on wet tracks.”

All three of the stable’s candidates are Group Two winners chasing breakthrough success at the highest level.

“We’re happy with Mime and we’re intentionally keeping her on the fresh side,” Forsman said. “By the time she got to the third leg last year it was all a bit too much.”

Twelve months ago, Mime was an unlucky eighth in the Makfi Challenge Stakes (now the Tarzino Trophy) before she ran second in the Windsor Park Plate and again eighth in the Livamol Classic.

Coldplay will have race fitness on her side after she was blocked for room when unplaced in the Gr.2 Foxbridge Plate and she was foiled by the Slow 9 going at Hastings when out of the money in the Tarzino Trophy.

“She went to let down, but she couldn’t handle the track,” Forsman said. “She’s come through the race fine though.”