Racing: Make or break moment for Kiwi Ida in Hawera feature

Kiwi Ida has a class edge on her rivals on Saturday. Photo / Race Images

This could be the defining race of Kiwi Ida's career.

If the South Island's best race mare wins at Hawera on Saturday she could be set for one more summer on the biggest stage. If she gets beaten then maybe her career starts to wind down.

That is co-trainer Karen Parsons' assessment of the 6-year-old mare's future heading into the $70,000 Wyndspelle Grangewilliam Stud Stakes at Hawera in which she drops back from taking on the absolute elite.

Kiwi Ida's two starts this season have been in the Foxbridge Plate and Tarzino Trophy, both times getting back and wide from poor draws in races where that wasn't the place to be.

Even allowing for some of the wonderful mares she meets the Group 3 is about five lengths inferior to the races she has been starting in lately and as a 14-race winner the weight-for-age conditions suit her perfectly.

Drawn barrier seven over her favoured 1400m it all looks ideal but Parsons is cautious about the mare she loves.

"She is getting older now and you can only go to the well so many times," she says like a protective mother.

"She isn't showing any signs of soreness or issues and she is bombproof when it comes to her attitude, she is so quiet and relaxed.

"I am just hoping she still wants to be there and put in after her last few runs."

Saturday will be the ideal test of that because at her peak and with no bad luck Kiwi Ida has a class edge and punters have the security blanket of her being proven on all track conditions should the weather change.

While Parsons is not getting too carried away, any mention of new jockey Chad Ormsby brings a smile to her face. "I am thrilled to have Chad on and we have an association with him that goes back to him riding jumping winners for us," says Parsons, who trains the mare with her husband John.

"I think Chad will suit her because she needs to be held up for one run," she says.

Sitting midfield and able to swoop uninterrupted Kiwi Ida should probably win as her peak 1400m performances last season included winning the Westbury Classic, Manawatu Challenge Stakes and finishing third to Te Akau Shark, beating home Avantage, at weight-for-age in the BCD Sprint at Te Rapa.

While Kiwi Ida has five rating points over second-favourite Yearn and 10 or more over the rest of the field there is enough to like about Yearn, Supreme Heights, Sinarahma and even Le Castile, who is now with Nigel Tiley, to suggest the $3.20 favourite won't easily overcome any bad luck.