“I think it’s just earmarked him as the right horse”
This year will be a year like no other for the Melbourne Cup. With the backdrop of a pandemic and the introduction of additional vetting procedures in the face of a series of fatalities in the race, the Road to the Cup is a chequered one for many international aspirants dreaming of winning the Race that stops a Nation in 2021.
ANZ Bloodstock News will be following the fortunes of the Australian Bloodstock-owned Rodrigo Diaz who, after finishing second in the Geoffrey Freer Stakes at Newbury last month, has secured his ticket to Australia.
The Jamie Lovett and Luke Murrell-run Australian Bloodstock are no strangers to Melbourne Cup success, having won the great race with Protectionist in 2014, and now they bid for glory once more. Each week we will speak to Lovett and Rodrigo Diaz’s trainer David Simcock, as we charter his journey to Flemington on November 2.
For us, the Melbourne Cup is our greatest race and the one we all want to win. It’s something that, each year, is 12 months in the planning to make sure we’ve got the right horses to have a chance of winning it and in Rodrigo Diaz I very much hope we have found the right horse.
Certainly, after the Geoffrey Freer at Newbury where, my word, he ran a good race, going forward I think it’s just earmarked him as the right horse to bring out for a handicap.
We were hopeful that he would run well, obviously we needed him to run top three to qualify the first ballot for the Melbourne Cup, but to run a more credentialed horse in Hukum to a couple of lengths over an unsuitable distance, we were rapt with that.
At this stage he’s got the green light with the new protocols with regards to vetting, so we’re in play with respect to that. RV vet Grace Forbes called me on Tuesday to say that everything was fine with Rodrigo Diaz and his tests.
Although the additional testing is not ideal – the horse has to miss a morning’s work to get to the clinic to do the CT scanning and scintigraphy – all in all it was pretty uneventful, from what I gather.
And obviously once they pass that they can push on and, collectively, they probably miss a day or a day and a half with the process.
They’re fairly fit at this stage in the season, so it doesn’t have much of an impact from that point of view, albeit it’s not ideal.
We were supportive of RV and the changes. For us it’s very important to maintain the integrity of the race. We’ve had some issues going back five or six years now with horses going amiss in the race and, with the world today, there’s other factors in play and animal welfare is front and centre. It was very important that we were not only seen to be doing something, but actually addressing the issue so that we don’t have any issues going forward.
There’s no way of eradicating it totally, but it will stop horses running in the race that shouldn’t be when the trainers know that the horse has an underlying injury. In year’s gone by, there’s been very strong word out of Werribee that a horse isn’t right, but it still lined up in the race.
The process is not insurmountable, you’ve just got to make sure you’ve got a sound horse. If anything had shown up on those tests I wouldn’t want our horse running anyway.
The only question mark at the moment is whether we go on the first shipment or the second shipment because of the issues surrounding getting David Simcock’s staff into Australia.
The amount of flights into Australia are quite scarce and the two lads would have to be here by September 9, and do their two weeks hotel quarantine before the horse actually arrives. If they don’t leave the UK and be in Australia by the 9th then they’re basically out of play and we’ll have to look at the second shipment.
Everything’s pretty challenging with the new vetting process and then throw in Covid, but those are the times we live in.
At this point it will go one of two ways. If he goes into quarantine on the 9th the weights will be up before he arrives. We’ll then have a very good look at the weights and map a plan from there into the Melbourne Cup.
If we feel he’s safely in the race then he’s going to need another prep run anyway, and we’ll just choose the best race to suit leading in. But, if we feel he needs to win a race, then we’ll have to really nail it down and place him where we think we can win a race in Australia to get that penalty which gets him into the race.
I’m pretty confident that he’ll get in and Plan B, if he doesn’t make it on the first shipment, is that he’ll run in the Doncaster Cup and that’ll be his last run before getting on the aircraft.
If he wins that or runs Stradivarius to a couple of lengths it will guarantee him a start in the race.
It will be a great race once again. It’s the Melbourne Cup, so whether there’s ten, three or two internationals, it’s still the one we all want to win.
We also have Gold Trip heading over for the Cox Plate. He is Newmarket at the moment and we’ll research as to whether he’s a Melbourne Cup horse, but he does have form over 3000 metres in France, so I don’t think the distance will hold any fears, but it will depend on how they weight him as well.
Otherwise, there’s no real standout horse this year. Maybe one of those that we bought at the Tattersalls Autumn Horses in Training last year might show up, such as Mankayan and King’s Charisma.
King’s Charisma will kick off next week, so he may run out of time, but Mankayan, who made a fantastic debut for us finishing third at Kembla Grange over 2000 metres, if he can win some of these lead up handicaps, he could find himself in one of those features, without a doubt, it will just depend if he can get his weight up to earn a place.
Simcock: Veterinary procedures a ‘total overreaction’
David Simcock, the trainer of Rodrigo Diaz, labelled the new veterinary procedures for Cup hopefuls a ‘total overreaction’.
Rodrigo Diaz underwent a CT scan and scintigraphy ahead of his journey to Australia to contest the Melbourne Cup in November, which came back all clear.
“It’s a total overreaction. They’ve put a rod through their own back. If there was absolute clarity about the whole thing, it would be better. It’s such a grey area and nobody really knows,” Simcock said yesterday.
“All is good and it was very straightforward. Obviously, you’d be finding out something new if it revealed something, so it’s a relief from that point of view. It will be a relief for everyone that passes, I would think.”
The Newmarket handler confirmed all was well with his son of Golden Horn, however, and was delighted with his run in the Geoffrey Freer Stakes as he plots a path towards the two-mile feature on November 2.
“We’re really happy with the run. It (Geoffrey Freer) was always going to be on the short side for him, but what he did between the three (furlong mark) and the one was good and he stayed on well,” Simcock said.