SYDNEY - Auckland Cup winner Bazelle faces her spring campaign acid test in the group one Yalumba Stakes at Caulfield on Saturday.
Matamata trainer Paul Jenkins scratched Bazelle from yesterday's Cranbourne Cup, reckoning that the 2000m Yalumba was more suitable as she battles back from a double setback on hertrail towards the Caulfield and Melbourne Cups.
"I figured the Cranbourne Cup was a race in which she could get hurt, as it is often a stop-start affair, while the Yalumba will probably only have eight or nine runners and might be a leisurely run race with a sprint home," Jenkins told NZPA.
Bazelle injured a ligament a month ago and then developed a temperature causing her to miss the RM Ansett Classic at Mornington.
Jenkins conceded it was difficult to recover ground with those sort of setbacks leading up to Bazelle's dual targets of the Caulfield Cup and the Melbourne Cup.
"She is fit and well, but hasn't raced for a month. We have missed a valuable lead-up and once you are on the back foot it is hard to catch up."
Bazelle is 18th equal on the order of entry for the Caulfield Cup and is likely to make the field with at least four horses ahead of her predicted to drop out before final declarations on Tuesday.
But first she has to impress Jenkins in the A$400,000 Yalumba.
"I don't expect her to win on Saturday, but she would need to be within three or four lengths of them to justify going on."
Jenkins said the mare had her problems leading into this year's Auckland Cup and overcame them to win.
"So it can turn around with a bit of luck, but we are just going to take it one day at a time."
Another entry for the Yalumba is Confectioner, whose trainer David Hayes does not want him to run but may be forced to.
That's because he is precariously placed on the Caulfield Cup ballot, at 24th equal.
"I don't want to run him but I will have to give it consideration," Hayes told the Herald-Sun newspaper.
He may also rely on the discretion of the Melbourne Racing Club committee.
"I wonder whether they would look at promoting him as his weight-for-age form is very strong," Hayes said.
