KEY POINTS:
Seachange, the little bent-legged girl they said would probably never get to the racetrack, is about to run her last race.
A robust bank of physical tests show Seachange has come out of her unplaced effort in Sunday's Golden Jubilee at Royal Ascot in wonderful order and her management team are happy to give her high-flying career one more turn.
It will be in the group one Falmouth Stakes over 1600m at Newmarket on July 3.
The Seachange camp had been hoping for a career-defining performance in the Golden Jubilee, but a combination of a track that was cutting up a little and an impossible barrier draw put paid to the New Zealand mare's chances.
"Ted Durcan essentially said our chances were pretty much gone when he climbed on Seachange for the Golden Jubilee," said ownership manager Rick Williams, who arrived back in Auckland yesterday afternoon.
"Ted rode in the 2-year-old race and said the footing was pretty cut up out where we'd drawn. He wasn't happy when he went out."
Williams, owner Dick Karreman and caretaker trainer Graeme Sanders had a lengthy in-depth round-table before deciding to continue Seachange's career in the Falmouth.
"We were considering the July Cup," said Williams.
"We got the videos of the last five runnings of the July Cup and the Falmouth.
"The July Cup seems to be a very hard-run race and the Falmouth a much more tactical race. It will be a smaller field against something like 23 horses in the July Cup."
Williams said the entire team was happy Seachange was at her best going into Sunday's race, but strongly suspecting that is not quite the same thing as knowing it as a fact.
"We did an ECG and her heart is fine and every test proved positive.
"But in hindsight I now wish we'd run in the King's Stand Stakes on the first day of the meeting.
"I don't think she could have won it at five furlongs, but on the good surface on the first day she would have run a real race and it would have told us where we were with her."
In the Falmouth Seachange will face class mares in Darjina and Finsceal Beo, the pair that she chased home in Dubai and who finished second and third to Haradasun in England last week.
Ted Durcan has said he will stick with Seachange for the Newmarket meeting.
