Trainer Mike Moroney is entering unchartered waters with multiple Group 1 winning mare Tofane ahead of her return run at Caulfield.
Tofane is chasing a fourth Group 1 win when she lines up in the Memsie Stakes (1400m) on Saturday.
The mare’s previous three Group 1 wins have all been over Saturday’s trip, but all racing right-handed.
Tofane won the 2020 All-Aged Stakes at Randwick while her last two starts resulted in Group 1 victories at Eagle Farm in the Stradbroke Handicap and Tatt’s Tiara.
But Moroney holds no fears about Tofane racing left-handed, with the mare having won previously at Flemington, Caulfield and Moonee Valley.
“She tends to be fine going left-handed and a couple of times she’s been unlucky and one day down the straight she should have won,” Moroney said.
“She’ll take residual fitness into this which I think is a big thing and she’s running at her pet trip.”
Tofane last raced in June and Moroney has not raced the mare off such a short break first-up previously.
He said he had given Tofane extra gallops while her jump-outs had been stronger than if preparing for a first-up run at 1100m or 1200m.
But the trainer has confidence in the mare that she has done the work and will discuss with jockey Craig Williams, who won last year’s Memsie aboard Behemoth, the best way to ride the mare.
Moroney noted Williams was one of the better race planners amongst the jockey ranks and ideally would like to see Tofane settled in the one-one position in Melbourne’s first Group 1 of the Spring Racing Carnival.
“It will be something I will be having a look at myself, but it will also be something that Craig and I will discuss,” Moroney said.
“Both times we’ve got together in the two that she won with him aboard, we both agreed exactly where we wanted to be, and it worked out perfectly.
“We tend to read things pretty similarly, so we’ll see how we go this time.”