Bruce Harpley’s Frith has conquered circuits across New South Wales and Victoria, but now the five-year-old is out to add the new Bathurst Paceway to that list in tonight’s Oberon Cup (2,260 metres).

After a five-month spell, tonight’s meeting will be the start of a new season for the Four Starzzz Shark out of Jackie Kelly mare, looking for her seventh consecutive victory.

Frith is a runner who refuses to have a bad race, finishing outside the top three once in her 38 starts to date and aiming to go past the $800,000 career prize money figure with a win tonight.

Frith’s Bathurst record may count for little now with all six previous starts being on the Showground track, but with five wins – including a Gold Tiara and Gold Bracelet – she’s out to keep the city as one of her favourites.

Steve Turnbull’s My Dusky Sound claimed a memorable win over her during the latest Gold Crown carnival, the only blemish on that imposing record.

It’s a new track for the seven-time Group 1 winner, but Harpley is confident it won’t change her winning ways.

“I haven’t come across a track that doesn’t suit her,” he laughed.

“It’s actually the smaller ones that tend to suit her even better because she’s usually up on the pace a lot. But in saying that, some of her best runs have come at Menangle. Nothing seems to work against her.

“She’s got to learn to sit back at one stage. She got away with that many times last year and she can be a real one trick pony. This year I’ll be concentrating on getting her to sit behind other horses because that’s something she needs to have against horses of this quality.”

It’s quite a change of scenery and grade for Frith compared to her final start from last season where she took out the $100,000 Group 1 Crown 4yo Mares Final at Melton in August.

The rest of the Oberon Cup field, while not at that level, will be more than capable of mounting a challenge and that quality is something the Riverina trainer is well aware of.

“It’s hard just trying to find races for her. With the likes of the Turnbulls and the Hursts here, there’s a lot of fast horses going around at Bathurst compared to what we have here ... There’s no easy races for her now,” he said.

“She had a big break back between her three and four-year-old seasons. She had a bigger season then but only had 10 in the last so she’ll be fresh for this. I’ve had no problems with her, in fact the other day she worked the fastest quarter she’s done in two-and-a-half years.”

The Cup is the fifth race on the annual Oberon night’s card with the racing action getting underway from 6.37pm.