Elvstroem filly Karata, who is the last foal from recent Hall Of Fame inductee Let’s Elope, has been nominated to make her race debut at Bendigo.
Trainer Nigel Blackiston has entered the three-year-old for Friday’s 1400-metre Maiden Plate but said he won’t run her if the track is rain-affected.
“Her mother didn’t like wet tracks and she doesn’t like them either,” Blackiston said.
Two weeks ago Karata battled her way through dead ground to finish seventh of 12 in a 1000-metre Cranbourne barrier trial.
“She had a nice trial and finished off nicely but we just want to find the driest track possible for her,” Blackiston said.
“If it is worse than dead on Friday she won’t be running, that’s for sure.”
Blackiston was the stable foreman when Bart Cummings trained Let’s Elope, who won 11 races, including the 1991 Caulfield and Melbourne Cups.
She also won the 1992 Australian Cup and was named 1992 Australian Racehorse of the Year but at stud she has had mixed fortune.
Over 13 seasons she produced 10 foals of which one died while she missed one season and slipped twice.
Her most notable foal was Group Two winner of the AAMI Vase Ustinov, who was also a Group One runner-up in the Caulfield Guineas, Ascot Vale Stakes and Champagne Stakes.
Blackiston said Karata, who is raced by Let’s Elope’s owner Denis Marks in partnership with Paul King, was a late November foal and looked a stayer in the making.
“She is very similar to her mum at the same stage with nice scope for development,” Blackiston said.
“She has shown me that there is something there but you won’t see the best of her until she gets beyond a mile, mile-and-a-quarter, even a mile-and-a-half.”
