New Zealand Oaks winner Jungle Rocket will be aimed at the Queensland winter carnival with her owners looking forward to the filly finally racing in Australia.Jungle Rocket is owned by Armidale farmer David Pleasance, his wife Cynthia and her daughter and son-in-law Louise and Craig Betts.Pleasance, who bought the filly as a weanling in New Zealand, always intended to race Jungle Rocket in NSW after Jeff McVean had finished with her initial training.But Jungle Rocket proved more than a handful a

New Zealand Oaks winner Jungle Rocket will be aimed at the Queensland winter carnival with her owners looking forward to the filly finally racing in Australia.

Jungle Rocket is owned by Armidale farmer David Pleasance, his wife Cynthia and her daughter and son-in-law Louise and Craig Betts.

Pleasance, who bought the filly as a weanling in New Zealand, always intended to race Jungle Rocket in NSW after Jeff McVean had finished with her initial training.

But Jungle Rocket proved more than a handful and Pleasance was so impressed with the devotion of McVean he decided to leave the horse in his care.

"We got to know Jeff really well and most of the trust comes out of confidence in him," Pleasance told NZPA.

McVean, 54, who won a New Zealand Derby with Leica Guv in 2001, only has a small team and Pleasance said that was another factor in his favour.

"It's a family affair and they care for the horses unbelievably," he said.

It was some feat for Jungle Rocket to win Saturday's Oaks from such a short racing campaign.

She made a winning at Te Awamutu on February 4 and had finished second in two subsequent starts.

Jungle Rocket was well settled in the birdcage after the Oaks win but McVean said that painted a vastly different picture of the horse to as little as a month earlier.

"You wouldn't think she would be standing here like this a month ago," he said.

"She was fairly difficult at the start."

The Queensland Oaks (2400m) at Eagle Farm on May 30 is now the target.

Pleasance, 62, has only been involved in racing for five years.

The former Sydney builder said he was talked into racing a mare by a bricklayer friend he described as a "mad horseman".

"It's all happened by accident," Pleasance said.

"The interest in racing for me is in breeding. I have become engrossed with the science, or principles, of breeding."

Jungle Rocket, by Jungle Pocket, was ridden in the Oaks by star apprentice James McDonald.

He settled the horse four back on the inner and moved up in behind the leaders approaching the turn but looked likely to be denied a run when he went for a gap on the inside of Can't Keeper Down with 200m to run.

But McDonald did not hold back and Jungle Rocket charged through and got up to win by a long neck from Can't Keeper Down.

NZPA WGT