Rollout The Carpet atoned for losing a Group 1 in March with a heart-stopping victory in the NZB One Thousand Guineas at Riccarton on Saturday.

Rollout The Carpet made all the running from a wide gate but was headed by Waterford in the straight before she raised a final effort to nail it by a nose.  “I didn’t really want to lead but she has learned how to relax and find a good kick,” jockey Mark du Plessis said.  “I was worried when the other filly headed me but she finished off so strongly.”

The Cambridge filly finally got to claim a top-flight title having won and then lost last season’s G1 Diamond Stakes in the inquiry room after racing erratically down the Ellerslie straight.  Her owners must have had a sinking feeling of déjà vu when the siren sounded on Saturday.

Leith Innes rode runner-up Waterford (Darci Brahma) and he lodged a protest after a busy finish, however, stewards confirmed the placings.

Rollout the Carpet (3f Holy Roman Emperor – Out Of Egypt by Red Ransom) had won a Te Rapa maiden in February and followed up with a G2 victory in the Matamata Breeders’ Stakes before losing on protest at Ellerslie.

She is trained by former New Zealand Olympic equestrian rider Jeff McVean and his daughter Emma-Lee Browne.  NZB manager John Cameron races her with his wife Jackie along with Hong Kong-based Matthew and Elizabeth Oram and William Fan and Tung Moon Fai.  She had been passed-in for $37,500 at the 2011 NZB Select yearling sale.

Rollout the Carpet’s dam Out Of Egypt (USA) is a sister to Wandering Star who was a Listed winner of the Atalanta Stakes at Sandown before a successful hit-and-run raid to Canada for the G2 E P Taylor Stakes in October 1996.