Racing: Miss Potential being readied for Brisbane

Miss Potential had a failed pregnancy to Red Ransom.

Top racemare Miss Potential is being prepared for the Brisbane winter carnival.

Miss Potential was to have been retired from racing last year but her pregnancy to New South Wales-based stallion Red Ransom ended in a miscarriage.

The 7-year-old has returned to training and was to have raced at trials at Thames on Thursday but they were called off because of rain.

"That has set us back a little bit," Miss Potential's Waikato trainer and part-owner Bill Borrie said.

There are trials at Cambridge next Tuesday and Borrie said if the track was in reasonable order, Miss Potential could step out there.

"She has handled wet conditions pretty well when she was a younger horse but I don't want to do what I did last year."

He was referring to Miss Potential resuming on a heavy track at Ellerslie last June when she finished last.

Borrie said if track conditions were not suitable at Cambridge, he could send the horse to Brisbane without a trial.

Among the races she has been nominated for are the group one events of the A$300,000 ($360,000) weight-for-age BTC Cup (1200m) at Doomben on May 13, the A$650,000 weight-for-age Doomben 10,000 (1350m) at Doomben on May 27 and the A$1 million Stradbroke Handicap 1400m at Eagle Farm on June 10.

"At this stage she's very well," Borrie said.

"She's fit, she's healthy, she's looking a million dollars and there is no reason outside the normal risk of racing why she shouldn't go back and have another crack."

Miss Potential is one of the most admired mares in New Zealand racing.

In 2003 she won the group one $100,000 Mudgway Stakes (1360m) at Wanganui at her first start since suffering a spiral fracture of a cannon bone in her left front leg six months earlier.

It was an injury other horses might not have been persevered with.

The following year Miss Potential won at group one level in Melbourne when taking out the A$500,000 Nestle Peters Classic (1600m) for fillies and mares at Flemington, beating hot favourite Alinghi.

There was further group one success last year when scoring in the $150,000 weight-for-age Stoney Bridge Stakes (1600m) at Hastings last October.

She then headed over to Australia, where she was served by Red Ransom.

When it was found she had not become in-foal she returned from racing in Melbourne to again be served by the sire.

The second mating appeared to be successful.

"She was positive at 17 days and positive again at 27 days. But by 42 days the fetus had gone," the trainer said.

Borrie said he was undecided if Miss Potential would return to Red Ransom again next spring.

"He's an option to us and there's also the option to go to Starcraft," he said.

"But there are many options and we are just going to sit on the fence for a while."

Borrie said there was no reason Miss Potential could not produce a foal in the future.

"The vets here and in Australia see no reason why she would be a shy breeder.

"All the plumbing is in the right places and doing the right things.

"It was just for some reason that nature said we didn't want to do it last time round."

- NZPA