Plainer sailing for stakes contender

[Wandering Eyes]

Promising mare No Time To Jazz (NZ) (Swiss Ace) will front up on Saturday for the second black type challenge of her brief career and will be much better prepared this time around.

The Pam Holden-trained five-year-old will head north to Arawa Park for the Gr.3 Rydges Rotorua Stakes (1400m) off the back of a fine effort for fourth on her home track at Hastings in the Listed Power Turf Sprint (1200m).

No Time To Jazz’s performance was even more creditable given she had endured a far from smooth build-up.

“I nearly didn’t get her to the races at Hastings because the Monday before that sprint she got colic and hardly ate for two days,” Holden said.

“I stayed down at the stables with her nearly 24/7. She had a shot of antibiotics, which I didn’t want her to have but she had to.

“I thought I wasn’t going to get her there, but I nominated her and if she didn’t come up then I would scratch her.”

Fortunately, No Time To Jazz responded to treatment and gave a good account of herself under the circumstances.

“I fed her yoghurt to counteract the antibiotics and really pampered her. She ended up running a really good fourth, but if she hadn’t had that hiccup at the beginning of the week she would have been a lot better,” Holden said.

No Time To Jazz, who will be ridden by Sam Spratt on Saturday, has come a long way in a short time with three wins from six career appearances.

“It took me a little bit of time to get the recipe right with her because she was tying up, but now she is going very, very well. We are so pleased with her,” Holden said.

“She is lovely to have around the stable, she’s no trouble. She works along quietly and doesn’t pull, she’s just a very easy girl to deal with.”

No Time To Jazz came on to Holden’s radar as a juvenile and subsequently into her joint ownership.

“I saw her as a two-year-old out at (breeder) Chris Russell’s place and I wanted her then, but he didn’t want to let her go,” she said.

“That was before she was broken in and I had always wanted a Swiss Ace.

“When she was a three-year-old I was told I could lease her so Stephanie Russell, Chris’ niece, did that and he gave us the option to purchase her.

“After she won the last time we bought her. I have known the family for years and years.”

No Time To Jazz is out of the Dieu D’Or mare Donna Jazz, who was successful on two occasions with the multiple Group One winner Shoot Out the headline act in the pedigree.

She is one of a handful of horses Holden has in work and will shortly upgrade from her permit to train licence.

“I’m going to go for my public trainer’s licence because I’ve got a couple more horses that belong to other people,” she said.

Holden is a vastly experienced horsewoman having worked for the late Keith Couper, one of the leading trainers at Hastings in the 1960s and 1970s, and then with fellow Hawke’s Bay trainer Patrick Campbell.

She subsequently prepared yearlings for sale for Sir Patrick Hogan at Cambridge Stud and later stints with Michael Moroney’s Matamata stable and with former Cambridge trainer Chris McNab before returning to Hastings.

During her time with McNab, she accompanied the multiple top-flight winner Moss Downs to Melbourne where he finished fifth in the Gr.1 Cox Plate (2040m).

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