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By Brad Gray

Saturday's $150,000 Listed June Stakes (1100m) at Royal Randwick wasn’t originally on the radar for Perizada but Canberra-based training partnership John Nisbet and Ron Weston believed she had done so well since resuming a fortnight ago, here she is.

“We were more so looking at the Ramornie so we weren’t going to back her up after two weeks but we noticed she had thrived midway through last week so thought we’d go to this race,” said Nisbet.

The six-year-old mare ran a brave fourth first up behind Dreamforce, despite sitting wide the trip and Matthew Cahill was keen to retain the ride, having ridden her on seven occasions for four wins.

Perizada's first up run at Randwick

“Matty thought she went great. She had a tough trip and just knocked up a bit. He actually thought he was going to win straightening up but she got a little bit tired even though she kept getting to the line,” said Nisbet.

“You can’t drag her back. She has got plenty of speed but if you gun her at that level you’ll get run down so Matty just had to cop where he was. We thought she went terrific.

“Last time we had the luxury of running at Canberra (first up) but she is too highly rated now. She was pretty underdone. We don’t jump her out or trial her because of the issues she has had and she is a bit of a barrier rogue.”

John Nisbet with Perizada after winning at Warwick Farm (Pic: Bradleys)

Perizada has a screw in one of her knees and her feet bruise easily. Despite all that, she has won nine from 24 starts and Nisbet expects her to be in the finish again on Saturday.

“She is a big, hard-going sort of mare so we’ve found if we just let her race into fitness she performs better,” Nisbet revealed.

“We think we’ve got her as sound as we’ve ever had her at the moment even though she is an older mare. Her knee hasn’t been an issue for a fair while now.”

The daughter of Shaft has mixed her form on wet tracks, with Randwick all but guaranteed to be in the heavy range, but Nisbet suspects she’ll get through it.

“We were adamant we weren’t going up there if she drew wide this time but now that might be the place to be by the end of the day. She always travels well in wet ground and that’s half the battle,” said the former jockey.

“She beat a really good open field at Canberra one day on a heavy 10 staying hard up against the rail but we took her to Warwick Farm another day and she went terrible. She was slowly away though and drew inside when they were getting wide. She has been good on it, and not so good on it.

“I thought the first up field had a little bit more depth in it than this field. It’s still a hard enough race, but I think she has a great chance.”

Perizada is currently a $6 chance with TAB Fixed Odds.

Check out the fields, form and replays for Royal Randwick on Saturday.