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By Greg Prichard

Wyong trainer Allan Kehoe has been making big inroads in town recently, but on Monday he’ll go back to the bread-and-butter of the country meetings at Taree and try to get yet another win with his promising three-year-old filly Mrs Ed.

Unlike Mr Ed, the talking horse from the 1960s American TV sitcom fame, Mrs Ed can’t actually tell Kehoe how she feels, but he knows her well enough to believe she’s in with a genuine winning chance again.

Allan Kehoe with Moonlight Grace after a Warwick Farm win. Image by Bradley Photographers

Coming off two wins from her last three starts, Mrs Ed will contest the Club Taree Benchmark 58 Handicap over 1000m.

She won a Fillies and Mares Maiden over 1108m at Port Macquarie on March 25, was next-up fourth in a Benchmark 50 over 1208m at Port on April 8 and at her last start dropped back to 1000m to win a Benchmark 58 at Port on April 16.

Mrs Ed is only lightly raced, with five career starts and two wins from those, so as a young horse her own benchmark is just gradually climbing and didn’t rise high enough after her most recent win to stop her from contesting another Benchmark 58 at this stage.

“She’s a nice type and she’s been winning like a good horse,” Kehoe said.

“She’s still only a 55 benchmark now, so it makes sense to run her in this race. I think she’s going to go through the grades.”

Kehoe has produced another three-year-old filly, Moonlight Grace, to win at each of her last two starts - at Warwick Farm and then at last Saturday’s city-class stand-alone meeting at Hawkesbury.

Mrs Ed ran poorly at her first two starts in Maiden races over the late December-early January period, for a last of 12 at Wyong and a 13th of 14 at Port Macquarie.

Kehoe said he had been expecting much better based on her performances in training, so he gave her a spell and she came back a different horse on raceday.

“I don’t know what happened her first two starts,” he said. “She looked really good in preparation, but she raced terrible.

“I said after her second start ‘she’s just not that slow, let’s put her away and see if that works’. So she had time off and when she came back I trained her the exact same way and she’s done everything right since.”

Mrs Ed’s first win was on a Heavy 8 track and her second victory on a Good 4, so track conditions don’t appear to make any difference to her.

Taree is rated a Heavy 8 on Thursday morning with obviously significant time for that to change to some degree depending on the weather over the next few days.

*Gates open at 11am. First race 12.50pm. Admission $10. Full bar, bistro, TAB and bookmaker facilities.

View the final fields with full form & race replays for Taree here