Racing: Mi Payday looks good in Pick6

Mi Payday. Photo / Dean Purcell

With Lisa Whelan's 2kg claim reducing the mid-week win penalty, look to tough Wanganui visitor Mi Payday to kick-start the $300,000 Pick6 at Riccarton today.

She simply won too well on Wednesday against stronger company to let the extra 1.5kg she carries stop her from completing a carnival double.

Throw in first-day R90 placegetter Benabar and the unlucky Lisa Latta-trained R75 graduate Galaxy Star as insurance.

The latter ran into a brick wall when trying to improve last Saturday.

This time last year he was rated good enough to contest the group one Levin Classic.

Assuming she's shaken off last Saturday's 2000 Guineas placing - and the stable reports say she has - Anabandana looks close to an anchor in leg two, the $300,000 New Zealand Bloodstock 1000 Guineas.

It may seem like a big ask for a horse to run successfully in group ones over 1600m in successive weeks, but the good ones can at three.

Before they switched the 1000 Guineas to the last day, plenty of fillies lined up in their own group one on Saturday and got the money again on Wednesday against the colts and geldings in the 2000 Guineas.

Fresh Cambridge raider Artistic shapes as the biggest threat.

She has a devastating finish, as we saw when she won the Bonecrusher Stakes two starts back, and trainer Shaune Ritchie is confident she's ready to run the race of her life.

Artistic won't want to give Anabandana a huge head-start at the top of the straight but rider Michael Coleman should have her positioned a lot handier from her first decent big-race draw.

It gets a little trickier again in leg three, the R90 2500m, but New Zealand Cup ballots Supremacy and Aruriteson should be included, along with impressive first-day winner Tropical Storm.

Go wider if you can in the 148th Christchurch Casino New Zealand Cup - it has the potential to throw up another upset. On his Victorian form, last year's winner Showcause, searching for consolation for missing Melbourne Cup qualification, must be tough to bowl again.

But he's jumped 5kg on the weight he scraped home with last year for Darryl Bradley and is vulnerable.

Last year's placegetter Zabene, in the best form of his career as evidenced by his Metropolitan Trophy win last weekend, meets him 6kg better off. That's going to tell at the end of 3200m.

It's hard to see any of the beaten first-day lot turning the tables on Zabene, he won so effortlessly. If you can afford a spread, include the lightweight Cambridge visitor The Terminator. His last-start effort to pick-up Aruriteson in a sprint home at Ellerslie is winning form in a race like this.

Tighten the outlay in leg five with promising Awapuni four-year-old Ransomed as the anchor.

His late-closing effort for third on the first day over 1600m was enormous. The step up to 2000m looks ideal at this stage of his preparation.

The David Haworth/Matt Dixon-trained Kekova can book-end the carnival in leg six.

He won narrowly in the opener last Saturday but without being fully extended and would have taken a fair bit of improvement out of the race.

L'Amour was three lengths adrift of Kekova that day but she was second-up and will also have sharpened appreciably with the run.

An added bonus with the Lisa Latta-trained runner is that she meets Kekova 3kg better off at the weights.

If she makes it off the ballot in the first at Tauranga and opts for that event over race four, the three-year-old contest over 1400m, Lady Chapel looks an outstanding Pick6 bank-builder.

Twice placed in listed races in her first campaign, she resumed at three with a fifth in the group three Gold Trail Stakes. This looks a nice race to get that first win on the board.

Mufhasa should be everyone's anchor in leg one of the quaddie, the Stella Artois Tauranga Stakes.

Ignore her last start effort when tripped up by a heavy Trentham and follow up with Lady Kipling in the next, the open 1400m.

She's thrown in at the weights with Rory Hutchings' 3kg claim reducing her handicap to just 51kg.

Central districts visitor Gold Card should set up the speed for her to finish over the top.

This time last year Lady Kipling finished an unlucky fourth in the Tauranga Stakes before an even bigger next-up effort from the rear for third in the group one Levin Classic.