Exciting days ahead for class mare

Class act Keep The Peace produced a terrific gallop between races at Ruakaka yesterday with stablemate Roi Du Jeu.

Under instructions from trainer Shaune Ritchie, rider James McDonald had a stranglehold on Keep The Peace at the end of a nice exhibition.

Ritchie is excited about the autumn prospects for Keep The Peace, even if he is not so expectant of a brilliant performance first-up in the group one Waikato Draught Sprint at Te Rapa.

"I'd like to do one more exhibition gallop with her before Te Rapa," said Ritchie.

"She's going really well, but she won't be as forward at Te Rapa as when she won the Mudgway fresh in the spring.

"We felt it was important to win that race fresh, but she's being brought up much slower this time with the staying races in Sydney in mind.

"One thing I'm delighted about is that she put on 40kg when she came back from Melbourne. She's lost only 10kg of that and she's not far away, which means we're dealing with a much stronger mare this time."

Keep The Peace will run in the group one 1600m at Otaki two weeks after Te Rapa and head to Sydney.

Ritchie is attempting to sneak Roi Du Jeu into the Auckland Cup via the Summer Cup on the final day at Trentham.

His work yesterday was more than satisfactory given the difference in class between the pair.