If experience aboard Zeitung is any sort of advantage, Jamie Kah could be lifting the Thousand Guineas trophy this Saturday at Caulfield.
The crowd favourite will be reunited with the James Cummings-trained filly in the $1.5 million Group 1.
The 1600-metre event will be the seventh start of a preparation that started all the way back on August 7 for Zeitung, but the first time she will be ridden by a jockey who has previously partnered her this campaign.
Kah was a rival in The Vanity, which Zeitung won with Mark Zahra up, but she rode her into fourth placing in the Group 3 Champagne Stakes (1200m) at Moonee Valley on September 27, which was when Kah first thought she could be a Thousand Guineas horse.
“As soon as I got off her at Moonee Valley I said that to James I’d definitely run her in that (Guineas) because she really gives me the feel of a smart horse,” Kah said.
Andrea Atzeni rode Zeitung when second in the Group 2 Thousand Guineas on October 19, when Kah was riding in Sydney, while James Mcdonald, Zac Lloyd and Rachel King rode her in her first three starts of the campaign.
Lloyd is the only rider who has ridden Zeitung more than once, having steered her to Kembla Grange maiden success at her final start as a two-year-old.
Like many in the Guineas, Zeitung will tackle 1600m for the first time and while a daughter of Exceed And Excel, she is out of a Shamardal mare who is a daughter of Irish History, who was placed in a Group 1 Coronation Stakes (1609m) and is from a family with form well beyond a mile in Europe.
Kah believes Zeitung’s racing style will give her every chance to run a strong 1600m.
“She’s a funny horse, she feels like she’s a sharp 1000-metre horse, but in her races she just falls asleep, which is ideal for the Thousand Guineas, especially around this track,” Kah said.
“I feel like she’s the perfect horse for it because she’ll fall asleep as long as you don’t touch her early and just let her relax and save it until the last 200 or 300.”
Zeitung has come up with barrier four in the 13-filly Guineas, in which Aeliana retains favouritism despite drawing barrier 11.