Peter Wiggins expects reliable mare Salander to continue her strong form this campaign and salute on Thoroughbred Park's Acton Track on Friday.
Photo by Racing and Sports
The four-year-old has been accepted to race in a Benchmark 60 Handicap (1750m) and comes in having finished second in a pair of runs to kick off her campaign before winning last start on the course proper at Canberra.
Wiggins said the win was well deserved given the consistent form that Salander had leading in to the race.
“Not a lot of horses were making up ground on the track, and she made up about five-lengths to catch the leader, so it was a great win for her,” said the Canberra trainer.
“I'm tipping it wasn't her distance either, the fourteen-hundred metres. I'm tipping that she's going to be better over a mile-plus.
“I think she can win again. She'll take a ton of beating if the track suits her. She's always improving and is a lovely horse.”
Wiggins has been ecstatic with the progress of the Moscow Ballet mare and added that her statistics would look far better if she had not come against such strong company to date.
“Every horse she's run second to, bar the one a few runs back which we don't know about yet, has been a good one,” Wiggins said.
“She ran second to Keithy Dryden's horse, Myname'sjames that could be bloody anything.
“She's run second to Sydney's Destiny, who has won in Melbourne.
“She's run second to Natch Catch who has now won four races, and she ran second to Asclepius who was second in the Wagga Guineas the other day.”
Despite having finished as the runner-up to Sydney's Destiny in her only run on the Acton Track, Wiggins was concerned the surface for Friday's Canberra meeting could favour on-pace gallopers.
“The only issue I have is how she'll go on the synthetic track, so we might have to change our tactics a bit to not let the others get too far ahead of us,” he said.
Wodonga based jockey Nick Souquet – who rated the mare in her runner-up finish to Myname'sjames recently - has been engaged to ride Salander and will jump from the wide alley.
Wiggins is yet to confirm where he would send the four-year-old to race next and said that she was not far off making an appearance in the city.
“We'll just keep plodding around in Canberra, but if she improves a bit I think she could mix it in a mid-weeker,” he said.
“I'm tipping around winter time we might take her in to town and find one of the easier mid-weeker races – maybe one of those fillies and mares races over nineteen-hundred or two-thousand metres.”
