Global Thinking will close her South Island campaign on Saturday, but that might not be the end of her travels this season.
The So You Think filly won the Listed Southland Guineas (1600m) last time out and will head home to Cambridge after the Listed New Zealand Bloodstock Airfreight Stakes (1400m) at Wingatui.
“She’ll come back here to have a couple of weeks off and then we’ll decide where we go,” trainer Shaune Ritchie said.
“We gave some consideration to a late nomination for the New Zealand Oaks, but you don’t win Group One races with an afterthought.”
A trip to Brisbane during the winter is a more realistic programme.
“We initially thought a mile might limit her, but the way she won the other day has us thinking that she will get further,” Ritchie said.
“If we look at Queensland, it will be very much for an Oaks campaign.”
Global Thinking was sent south to add black type to her CV and following a sixth placing in the Listed Gore Guineas (1335m) she ran second to Excelleration in the Listed Dunedin Guineas (1500m) before breaking through at Ascot Park.
It wasn’t Ritchie’s first success in the Southland Guineas having won in 1995 with The Hyatt.
“The Hyatt was a gelding and the key factor this time was turning this filly into a black type winner,” he said.
“She’s got the job done now and cemented her broodmare career. Placing this filly to do that was the whole point of the exercise.”
Global Thinking was bred by Gordon Calder and was sold by Curraghmore as a weanling at the 2015 NZB Sale for $42,500. -NZ Racing Desk