Racing: Beautiful Girl should strut her stuff

Leith Innes riding Beautiful Girl (right). Photo / Getty Images

Beautiful Girl's 9-800 formline is not something that fills you with hope.

But it might be dangerous to assume that is greatly significant in tomorrow's $45,000 Timpson Family Trust Sprint at Te Rapa.

It badly represents her true ability.

Beautiful Girl has had just the three starts this season, the past two on rain-affected footing in the Mudgway Stakes behind Keep The Peace and Wall Street and previously she was checked out of the race when unplaced behind Bulginbaah in the Foxbridge Plate on this track.

She has never won on slow or heavy surfaces.

Her best form is impressive.

Last season, she won the group three Darley Plate at Ellerslie, defeating Vonusti, who is likely to start favourite here. Smart former Australian sprinter Kiloton was third.

She was seventh in the Railway when not quite herself and before that took third in Avondale's Concorde and won a similar race to this at Ellerslie on December 13.

Beautiful Girl will be having her first start from the Cambridge stable of former French trainer Yves Seguin.

We know what a week the French are having.

Vonusti is probably the horse to beat. He meets Beautiful Girl 2kg better than when she beat him at Ellerslie.

The slight concern is Vonusti's 3-0 record at Te Rapa. One of those was when checked along with Beautiful Girl in a rough-house Foxbridge Plate, but the track record is perhaps significant.

* Thursday's trackwork will appear tomorrow.