Michael Freedman is always on the lookout for signs an older mare is ready for the broodmare barn, but he isn’t seeing them from multiple Group 1 winner Forbidden Love.
While the five-year-old has performed below expectations in three runs this preparation, there were enough positives in her Sydney Stakes effort last weekend for Freedman to press on to Saturday’s $2 million The Invitation (1400m) at Randwick.
“It wouldn’t be the first time a mare gets to a stage in her career where she decides she has done her job and wants to do something else,” Freedman said.
“But I don’t get that impression in her trackwork or her demeanour.
“She seems good and her run last Saturday gave me a little more encouragement that we are heading the right way.
“The better draw and on a genuinely soft track, which hopefully she will get on Saturday, it gives her every chance to put herself in the mix.”
Forbidden Love has drawn wide in all three spring runs, including when jumping from barrier 18 in the Sydney Stakes, but she has gate two in The Invitation and gets into the race well under the set weights and penalties conditions.
The in-form Blake Shinn has the ride and the mare did win the Group 1 Canterbury Stakes off a seven-day back-up in the autumn.
“She came out of the Guy Walter (Stakes) and backed up a week later into the Canterbury Stakes. She is a good, tough mare, I don’t have any concerns on that front,” Freedman said.
“On her best form, she’d be right in it.
“I’m still not sure she is in as good a form as she was in in the autumn, but I was encouraged by her run the other day where she did have to work from a wide gate and to be beaten only two lengths wasn’t a bad effort.”
Forbidden Love finished third to Icebath in the inaugural The Invitation last year and the latter is a $4.60 favourite to defend her title with Forbidden Love on the third line of betting at $6.50.
