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By Ray Hickson

Does Amelia’s Jewel step into the great unknown on a wet track and tackle Saturday’s Group 2 $400,000 Racing And Sports Golden Pendant (1400m)?

Trainer Rob Archibald (Pic: Grant Guy)

Rosehill was rated a heavy 8 on Friday morning with the prospect of improvement and co-trainer Rob Archibald said the mare’s lack of exposure to rain affected ground creates an interesting conundrum for him and Annabel Neasham.

She’s only raced once on a soft 5, that was a narrow defeat to Overpass in the 2023 The Quokka and she won a three horse trial at Belmont on a soft 6 so there’s no data to say she does or she doesn’t handle it.

“From our point of view she’s pleasing on every aspect leading in, the only query is the ground and hopefully we can answer that on Saturday,’’ Archibald said.

“She’s relatively untested on it so it’s an unknown, our gut feeling is she’ll be fine but if it’s heavy it’s a real unknown.

“Fillies like her that are sharp and have good speed the feeling is she probably prefers it on top of the ground or in the soft range.

“In terms of everything we’ve seen from her at home we couldn’t be happier with how she’s going.”

It’ll be a race morning decision as to whether Amelia’s Jewel does line up and it’ll take a look into the crystal ball as well with scratching time at 7.30am and the Golden Pendant run at 3.25pm.

She was $2.90 with TAB on Friday and disputing favouritism with Semana ($2.70).

Archibald said the stable couldn’t have been any happier with the five-year-old’s first-up run in the Group 2 Tramway Stakes (1400m) three weeks ago.

On a day where being back and off the fence wasn’t so desirable she ran a 33.39 final 600m (Punter's Intelligence) and her last 200m of 11.55 was 0.01 outside the race’s best as she ran into second behind Royal Patronage.

“I thought it was excellent, it was a day where it was relatively difficult to make ground but she attacked the line which was all we wanted to see,’’ he said.

“We felt she’d take good benefit from that run, she’s three weeks between runs so she’s had the chance to freshen up that little bit.”

He said ideally they’d like to progress to the Group 1 $5 million King Charles III Stakes (1600m) on TAB Everest Day third up.

In-form stayer Lincoln Rocks won’t mind the conditions when he makes his Sydney debut in the EGroup Protective Services Handicap (1900m).

The former Kiwi has raced five times in Victoria for the Neasham-Archibald team winning three times and placing in the other two and coms off a win over 2040m at Moonee Valley on September 7.

“He’s going really well and he will appreciate some give in the track,’’ Archibald said.

Amelia's Jewel runs second at Randwick on September 7

“He’s a horse on the up, it looks a nice race for him but he is going to have to keep stepping up.”

Imported stablemate Mormona steps out for the first time since winning over 3000m in France back in November and Archibald said while a soft track would be in his favour he’s likely to improve on whatever he does.

“He gets out over a bit more ground so this is a nice starting point but I think we won’t see him come into his own until he gets out over further,’’ he said.

All the fields, form and replays for Saturday’s Rosehill meeting