It's got to happen soon and tomorrow could be the day for Soap Opera.
The luckless Matamata mare has run into all the country's stars in most of the feature races for more than a year and she would not be normal if she was not starting to feel sorry for herself.
Sunline, Zonda, Beacon and Sir Howard are among the topliners Soap Opera has filled minor berths behind in just her last five starts.
The Sunline minor placing was in the New Zealand Thoroughbred Breeders Stakes at Counties, a race in which a year earlier Soap Opera had chased the champion New Zealand mare home.
Tall Poppy is another of the top class gallopers who have denied Soap Opera the one major race win she deserves.
Remarkably, for all her fine efforts, Soap Opera has won only four races, three of them at tomorrow's 1400m distance of the $40,000 Listed Westernbay Finance Tauranga Classic.
Last start Melbourne jockey Nash Rawiller rated Soap Opera unlucky not to have won the major metric mile on the last day of the Ellerslie carnival when fellow Matamata mare Platonic ran across her path in the closing stages, causing Rawiller to check her at a vital stage.
She was beaten only a head and a long neck and has been freshened nicely for the 1400m. There are signs the Paul O'Sullivan stable is starting to hit form after a relatively slow start to the season.
The danger is likely to be Durzetta. In late October she failed badly in the Captain Cook Stakes at Trentham a week after beating a top class field at Rotorua.
It proves she could not, at least at that stage, back up a week after a tough run.
But that as early in the season and she may be in tougher shape to produce this time a week after a fabulous run for fourth behind Sunline at group one level at Te Rapa last week.
In a race where Sunline ran the sprint out of just about every runner, Durzetta was edging ahead over the last 200m and provided that run did not take too much out of her, this race looks within her capabilities.
Stratford visitor Amnesia gets a long way back in running and that may be a problem if she strikes traffic problems late on this more turning track, but she certainly has the talent to pose a major threat.
She overcame a wide barrier draw to flash home late to finish second to Saint Cecile over 1600m last start.
The value could be Vain Ana, whose unplaced efforts in her last two runs were in the group one McDonogh Stakes and Telegraph Handicap and both were better runs than suggested by the form on paper.
She was not that far away from Star of Gold in the Telegraph at Trentham.
Earlier in the programme The Pumper, Fleeting Magic and Stuart Little look good betting propositions.
Racing: Soap Opera's time to shine
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