The track at Wanganui today, as is almost usually the case, had a massive manmade on pace bias from the outset. The eight winners in race order of where they turned for home were second, led, third, fifth, third, third, led and sixth. This Listed 3yo filly only 1200m saw Peaceful display why she has upside galore with a professional half length win in 1:16.20 on what was a biased slow track. Peaceful sat three back the fence in fifth spot not spending a penny from the outset and the fresh up filly turned for home fifth still but within three lengths of the leaders and off the inside and coming through. She drove through at the 200m and reached second at the 150m before leading at the 50m and holding out well two solid finishers that came from the back and had the weigh on in terms of momentum, so it was a very good win. It was the second win in six starts by Peaceful and both have been at Listed level on slow footing. The stablemates London Express (favourite) and Tutta La Classe both ran home strongly from second last and last on settling. London Express improved across the top and came up deepest and eighth turning for home before surging into third at the 200m and having all the momentum. She gained second at the 25m while Tutta La Classe was ninth turning for home and fifth at the 100m but kept coming to get third at the 15m. They both beat the manmade track bias to some extent but the first four finish was a mixed bag of where they turned for home with the winner fifth, the runner up eighth, the third finisher ninth and the fourth finisher led. What A Smasher set the pace and looked hard to run down at the 200m and even at the 100m but was swamped the final 50m to miss the top three as she wilted. Shez Ekstra came from the rear trio on settling and ran home gamely from tenth still at the 200m to finish fifth beaten just under four lengths. Beam Of Light and Secret Allure battled on for barely pass marks. The rest plugged only or stopped badly with the Team Te Akau pair of The Real Beel and Ritzy Sparkle very poor after racing third and second respectively on settling. Peaceful has scope galore but the key threshold now for the filly is to see if she is effective on top of the ground as that is where the Group racing is almost exclusively held. She has placed on good ground behind a since G2 winner and G1 placed filly that is now trained in Australia, so there is more than hope and in fact expectation all will be okay. The same query will apply for London Express and Tutta La Classe but more so as they are only wet track or cutting out dead ground performers to date and neither is yet to run on good footing. What A Smasher is speedy and can go on top of the ground so she is a logical improver after today while Shez Ekstra is one of a few good fillies in the Guy Lowry and Grant Cullen yard at the moment. Secret Allure was disappointing overall but she deserves another chance as the filly did beat Peaceful into second at Listed level last season albeit the runner up was massive in defeat that day. Until we see the fillies on decent footing and tracks that are not manmade biased the asterisk of doubt must be attached as the Group races that matter are run in the main on top of the ground. Fillies can get away with maybe one run on harder or firmer footing than they like but after that it is total exposure and a real moment of reckoning.