The team at Lindsay Park was reluctant to label the Lord Stakes a target race for Marble Arch earlier in the campaign, but it has been full steam ahead to the Boxing Day feature ever since December 14.
That was when the daughter of Per Incanto booked her spot in the $175,000 Listed event with a soft win over the progressive Warnie at the Caulfield Heath track.
The five-year-old returns to the same venue for Thursday’s 1600-metre event.
“She certainly had to win that race to put her hand up for a race like this,” JD Hayes, who trains in partnership with brothers Ben and Will, said.
“It was something that we were hoping to get her to, but she booked her own ticket there and I think this is a lovely race for her.
“She’s trained on nicely out of the race, she’s just been ticking over healthy and happy at home, so hopefully it’s a rinse and repeat-type performance.”
The Lord Stakes is a co-feature on a program that has been brought forward to due extreme heat with the first of eight races now scheduled for 11.15am.
The Lord Stakes, the second-last race at 2.25pm, will be Marble Arch’s first start in Stakes grade since finishing seventh in the Listed Black Pearl Stakes (1200m) at Geelong almost 12 months ago.
Her only other start at Black Type level was a sixth in the Listed Bendigo Guineas (1600m) in April last year.
The Kiwi mare had won her three starts before that in a dominant debut Australian campaign, when she looked destined to be a Stakes-grade regular, and while that hasn’t happened Hayes haven’t given up hope that it will in the future.
“She unfortunately got ulcers in her second preparation, so we had to turn her out and be patient,” Hayes said.
“The owners have given her every opportunity and we’re just glad to see her back in as rich a vein of form as what she was when she first came onto the scene.
“She still got plenty of racing ahead of her and hopefully plenty of Black Type to come.”
Marble Arch has the services of in-form jockey Daniel Stackhouse in Lord Stakes, in which she is $4.60 second favourite behind Riot And Rose ($2.90) after drawing the inside barrier.