Te Akau Prelude for Gold Fever

The Informant reports:

Smart two-year-old Gold Fever will be on trial for the Queensland winter carnival when she returns to action in the Listed Hamilton Vets Equine Stakes at Te Rapa on Saturday.

The Savabeel filly last raced when third in the Gr. 1 Sistema Stakes at Ellerslie two months ago, adding that placing to her previous start success in the Gr. 2 Matamata Breeders' Stakes on top of two wins and two thirds from her previous four starts.

“We gave her a break after Ellerslie and since coming back in she's really thrived, so we figured she was worth considering for our Queensland team,” co-trainer Stephen Autridge said as Gold Fever got through trackwork at Matamata this morning.

“She's a tough little thing, a natural two-year-old, so if she runs up to expectations on the weekend there's every chance she'll head across.”

Gold Fever will be joined in Saturday's two-year-old feature by stablemate Aquilo, a Snitzel half-brother to Marky Mark who got through very heavy ground to win at Rotorua last month and worked well with Gold Fever this morning.

The Te Akau Racing pair will meet a formidable rival at Te Rapa in the Stephen Marsh-trained Redoute's Choice colt Ardrossan, who was so impressive on debut at Pukekohe recently and is also set to head to Australia.

The Te Akau contingent for Brisbane will include star two-year-old Melody Belle, the winner already of the Karaka Million and Gr. 1 Manawatu Sires' Produce Stakes who is booked on the charter flight out of Auckland on Thursday.

Stablemates Heroic Valour and Shocking Luck are already in Queensland, where the latter finished second yesterday in a class three 1500-metre event at Ipswich. Sent out favourite in his first start since his second to Wyndspelle in the Waikato Guineas three months ago, Shocking Luck went down by just a head at Ipswich and with stake-earnings still below A$30,000 he will require further prize-money to guarantee a start in upcoming three-year-old features.

Heroic Valour, who finished third last week in a trial hitout at Hawkesbury on his way north from Sydney, is scheduled to kick off his Queensland campaign in Saturday's Gr. 3 Gold Coast Guineas at Southport.