Cups King Bart Cummings is in no hurry to rush promising filly Norzita into the tough Spring company after the Thorn Park filly scored impressively at her second race start at Rosehill on Saturday.
Norzita scored an impressive win at Rosehill Gardens on Saturday - photo © Steve Hart
Cummings was able to turn around Norzita’s incident packed debut fifth at Gosford with a polished display to score a one and a quarter length win over Seaside in the Woolworths 2yo Handicap over 1300m.
The Thorn Park filly was a little slow to jump at Gosford for Brenton Avdulla and then had to be checked shortly after the start and even though she raced greenly three wide, was able to run into the race to finish fifth.
Cummings believes the filly has a future but will be patient with her and would like to test her amongst the best if she kept on improving.
“I think she has a good future but we’ll be patient with her,” Cummings said.
“She’s still learning and has made improvement since what happened at Gosford.”
“She has needed time and she is still growing. We’ll just wait and see.”
Long time owner Dato Tan Chin Nam paid $200,000 for Norzita and Cummings was happy he could steer his old friend into having a couple of dollars on the filly.
“It’s nice to have a winner for old Chin Nam,” Cummings said.
“He will be pleased. I told him to back her.”
Dato Tan’s racing manager Duncan Ramage said that he would leave the filly’s Spring program up to Cummings and the master trainer will know if she is ready for races like the Group 1 $1m De Bortoli Wines Golden Rose (1400m) at Rosehill on September 15 and the Group 1 $400,000 Flight Stakes (1600m) at Randwick on October 6.
“We will let Bart assess it,” Ramage said.
“He has a fond feeling for her and the timing is right to head to some of the bigger races.”
“But we won’t get carried away.”
But Rampage is happy to give Norzita one or two more runs this time in and then send her back to paddock to let her mature a bit more.
“We see how she pulls up, but it would be nice to give her another run as some of the better races appear in three weeks’ time, if she holds up, to give her a chance in the lower grade better races,” Ramage said.
“Then we will probably tip her out, but Bart will call the shots and let’s not bottom her too early.”
Winning rider Glyn Schofield was impressed with Norzita’s win and is predicting further improvement for the two year old under the guidance of the master trainer.
“Obviously the ‘old man’ has not lost his touch and while he has been a little bit quiet I think they are going to have a little bit of fun with this one,” Schofield said.
“I was one off the fence and only opted to come out once I was going a lot quicker than they were and I was trying to slow her down. She was really green in her first effort but she has taken a lot of improvement from that and she won convincingly today, and will take further improvement again.”
