Friday's Terang & Moonee Valley Trio

The first of today's Ballymore runners is Tanana who faces the starter for the second time having done her best work late when debuting at Colac a few weeks ago.

The daughter of Almanzor drew the outside barrier of 12 on that occasion, ending up worse than midfield before picking up nicely and working home steadily through the field.

She stays at the same trip of 1200m today but has drawn a better gate (3) and we are hoping that she can be closer to the action this time.

"She should be up on the speed for Declan Bates," Glen said, "in the first four from that gate."

"With natural improvement from her first up run and a better barrier we think she ca be very competitive."

"We have been very happy with her - she had her main gallop in preparation for this on Saturday morning and could not have worked much better."

"If she runs up to her work she should be pretty hard to beat."

A $340,000 Inglis Classic purchase, the Cambridge Stud bred Tanana is racing royalty with her dam being a daughter of the high class mare Marquise - one of the five Gr.1 winners produced by the superstar broodmare Eight Carat.

In the following race we have the lightly raced three-year-old Tuscaloosa Chief kicking off his second racing campaign.

Coincidentally he is related to Tanana, the two hailing from different branches of the internationally prolific Mumtaz Mahal family.

A $160,000 Magic Millions graduate bred by Yulong, the son of our Gr.1 C.F Orr Stakes winner Alabama Express did not have the best of luck during his first preparation but has been given time to mature and strengthen.

"He looks great," Glen said, "and he is working well. We've been pleased by his jump-outs but the 1400m is going to be short of what he can run best at."

"But we are really happy with the way he heads to the races and hopefully he can sprint well fresh; he is a sneaky each-way chance at good odds though we do know that he will definitely be better as he gets over further."

"We will leave it to Jack Hill but we won't be bustling him from barrier 2; he will see how he jumps away but he will probably midfield and hopefully he can show us something today."

Our Friday concludes with the oh so honest mare Pacific Cross taking her place in the fourth race at Moonee Valley, a BM70 2040m contest for the girls.

What great form the daughter of Merchant Navy is in, at each of her last four starts finishing a game runner-up; the latest when stepping up to this sort of distance.

To jump from barrier 8 with Daniel Stackhouse again aboard, Pacific Cross is always well favoured in the market and is once again one of the favourites.

Purchased at Easter for $140,000, the granddaughter of the classy New Zealand mare O'Reilly Rose is - would you believe - also from the family that produced Tanana and Tuscaloosa Chief! Though a different branch, she being a descendant of Mumtaz Mahal's sister Lady Juror.