Barry Lockwood believes he and co-trainer Emma-Jane Vincent have five-year-old mare Miss Personality going well ahead of her first up run at Ipswich on Wednesday.
A daughter of Lonhro and a $400,000 purchase at the 2022 Gold Coast Yearling Sale, Miss Personality has only managed six career starts, winning three, including when last seen at Eagle Farm in July.
A couple of niggling issues have kept Miss Personality from consistent racing, but Lockwood believes she’s in the best condition he’s seen and should acquit herself well in the Seven News Benchmark 70 over 800m.
“After that run at Eagle Farm she was sore in behind, we gave her a good spell and she’s come back soundly, no issues with her now,” Lockwood said.
“She’s got a good bit of ability, but it’s been a late start for her.
“I do think, once she gets a few runs into a prep, that she’ll get over six furlongs at least, that’ll be the plan with her.”
While Miss Personality is still a fair way from black type racing, Lockwood is hoping that she can go through the grades and look to add some value as a broodmare proposition, which could be as soon as next season.
“I’ve just leased her for the next year,” Lockwood said.
“She’s been sold to some people who are going to breed with her next season and the idea is to try and build up a little bit of form with her and then try her in some black type races when she’s able to get into it with her rating.”
“It’s very important and we’ve got right through until the Winter, it’ll give us the opportunity.”
With that in mind, Lockwood believes Miss Personality, who is a $2.50 favourite for the second event at Ipswich on Wednesday, should prove very hard to beat with Tahlia Fenlon in the saddle.
“There’s no two ways about it, she trialled really well the other day,” Lockwood said.
“I intended to trial her again and the jump outs were called off and I thought ‘oh well, there’s a half-mile race at Ipswich, she may as well go around and hopefully get paid to trial.”
