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Willie Cazals will surprise his connections if he can make an impression in his New Zealand debut.

The former European stakes winner and Hong Kong Group performer will step out in the Gr.2 Lisa Chittick Foxbridge Plate at Te Rapa on Saturday.

Lance O’Sullivan, who prepares the Irish-bred grey with Andrew Scott, said the 1200 metres was well short of the gelding’s best but it would serve to get his spring campaign under way.

“He’s never raced under 1600 metres in his life, but he’s got to kick off somewhere.

“Ideally, we would have trialled him, but we looked at Te Teko the other day and there had been a lot of rain and we thought the best surface we could get would be at Te Rapa.”

Willie Cazals won four of his first five starts in Italy, including a 2000 metre Listed race and finished runner-up in the Gr.2 Italian Derby, before he joined Tony Cruz’s Hong Kong stable.

He won only one race there, but performed with distinction at the top level and was second in both the Champions & Chater Cup and the Hong Kong Vase.

“He arrived here after two bowed tendons so we gave him five months off. He’s obviously a day to day proposition,” O’Sullivan said.

The stable have enjoyed past spring success with a Hong Kong recruit having produced Pure Champion to win the Gr.1 Windsor Park Plate two years ago.

“Pure Champion was a sound horse though,” O’Sullivan said. “Willie Cazals is nine now and he’s not the Willie Cazals of old so the odds are stacked against him, but ability-wise he is a superior horse to Pure Champion.”