Cool Tart will become a valuable broodmare prospect if she can win the Gr.3 Lawnmaster Eulogy Stakes at Awapuni on Saturday.
The Zabeel filly is a three-quarter sister to the dual Group One Melbourne Cup and Victorian Derby winner Efficient and closely related to the Windsor Park Stud sire Guillotine.
Cool Tart won a 1600m maiden well at her last start and opened as a $3.20 favourite for the Eulogy, which drew a field of 13 one-win fillies.
Cool Tart has impressed at her past two starts and was having her first run in blinkers when runner-up to subsequent Gr.3 Wellington Stakes winner Tavago over 1600m at Te Rapa last month.
Cool Tart returned to Te Rapa for her next start, in another three-year-old maiden, and won by almost four lengths.
“She probably should have won her last two starts and they have been her only starts with blinkers and her only starts at 1600m,” trainer Roger James said.
James will see how Cool Tart, who will be ridden by Jonathan Riddell, performs at Awapuni before making any ambitious plans for the filly.
But there will be options if she races well, and she has Group One nominations for the Levin Classic, New Zealand Derby and New Zealand Oaks.
James, who has five Derby wins to his credit, also nominated The Hassler, Arundel and Von Tunzelman for the Ellerslie classic.
Von Tunzelman, a Zabeel colt, and Arundel have yet to race, but the latter was a trials winner this week.
Riddell has a good book for Awapuni where he will also ride Show The World, a $2.30 favourite for the Capture Signs Manawatu Cup Prelude, and will be reunited with Miss Selby in the rating 85 1600m.
Riddell regularly rode Miss Selby in her three-year-old season, but has not had a race day ride on the mare since March 2014, when she was the runner-up in the Gr.1 New Zealand Oaks.