Kris Lees has chosen the Listed Winter Cup (2400m) at Rosehill Gardens on Saturday as Nurse Kitchen’s weekend assignment.

 
After careful consideration, Lees opted to keep the daughter of Savabeel at home for the Listed race rather than send her to Queensland (with NZ-bred stablemates Our Gravano and Dal Cielo) for another Listed event, the Caloundra Cup at the Sunshine Coast. Both races are at 2400m, and Lees feels the Rosehill event is the 'softer option'.
 
Blinkers are going on the  four-year-old mare Nurse Kitchen, and he is hoping they will help her focus better during the race.
 
“But I feel the softer track will be more of a factor for her,” Lees said.
 
“There was more rain in Sydney yesterday and that has influenced me to run at Rosehill rather than go to Queensland.”
 
Nurse Kitchen, at only her third start since joining Lees’s team, tailed the field to the turn in a 2000m Handicap at Rosehill on June 16 before finishing seventh to Black On Gold, beaten just under three lengths.
 
The mare’s only two wins from a 10-start career have been on a slow track (the 1600m Gr.2 Fillies’ Classic at Moonee Valley in October 2016) and on the Geelong synthetic surface four months earlier in a 1300m 2YO Maiden. She was also narrowly beaten in the Gr.1 Vinery Stud Stakes (2000m) at Rosehill in March last year on a Heavy 9.