We need to do right by the horse
ANZ Bloodstock News will be following the fortunes of the Jamie Lovett and Luke Murrell-owned Australian Bloodstock, who are no strangers to Melbourne Cup success, having won the great race with Protectionist in 2014.
Each week we will speak to Lovett on the progress of their horses, as we charter the journey from Europe to Australia to contest Australia’s leading races.
We need to do right by the horse
Albeit I thought he was the right horse this year, we have decided to not bring Rodrigo Diaz across to Australia this campaign.
He’s not come out of the run in last Saturday’s Doncaster Cup as well as we’d hoped. Jamie’s (Spencer) feedback was that he just didn’t feel like the same horse.
Knowing jockeys like I do, that’s normally their way of telling you they’ve come to the end this preparation.
He’s such a lovely and progressive staying horse for the future, we just don’t feel it would be the right thing to bring him over this year.
He’ll have a little break now and David Simcock will get him ready for some opportunities in Dubai on the turf in the new year.
That travel might just do him the world of good in terms of preparing him for travelling as far afield as Australia in future years.
He’s been beautifully handled by David and managed by our partners at Quantum Leap and, at the end of the day, David’s the trainer, and he just felt that the right thing to do was to give him a break, and I’m highly in support of that.
If there’s one thing I have learned in this game, it’s that you’ve got to look forward and plan ahead. As I said in the first column, these plans for the Melbourne Cup are laid out 12 months in advance and, although it’s not worked out for him this time, who knows, we hope he can be a contender for the Cup next year.
It’s inconclusive on his performance. Stradivarius was obviously very good but certainly he didn’t run up to his best and Jamie Spencer, who I have a lot of faith in, made the comment that six from home he was just flat and was struggling to get up onto Stradivarius’ hindquarter. I could tell in the run we were in a bit of trouble about five furlongs from home.
The one thing I love about this horse is that he always travels very deep into his races and he just didn’t in that race.
Your eyes don’t lie and these horses find a way of telling you that they’ve had enough.
It was his first run since he went through the new veterinary procedures, but we’re not using that as an excuse for his flat performance. There’s no denying the veterinary tests are not ideal, but we all knew what the goalposts were and what we needed to do. It’s very hard to conclusively say whether that had an impact on his performance.
I think we are the first to have a run after undergoing the veterinary procedures, so it will be interesting to see how other horses fare in their next runs. But we are certainly not suggesting he ran flat because of that.
Gold Trip continues to progress as he prepares for travel to Australia
We are delighted with Gold Trip. He’s in quarantine now and Harry Eustace worked him at Newmarket earlier this week and he had a very good gallop. He’s just settling into the routine there and David (Eustace) is talking to Harry quite regularly about what he wants the horse to do.
They work up the hill at Newmarket and we’re just trying to keep his routine as normal as possible. Obviously they then have to get on the aircraft and come a long way.
This horse is a little bit unique in that we’ve already moved him once from France to Newmarket and into a different routine, so that’s a big ask of the horse, but by all reports he’s a lovely natured horse and he’s settled in quite well. Every day he’s just continued to go in the right direction.
He’ll be on the aircraft on Saturday to come over to Australia.
These days travelling horses, from an animal welfare perspective, it’s become a lot easier for the horse. The veterinarian travels on the aircraft with them and ensures they’re fully hydrated and healthy the whole way. That wasn’t possible several years ago and before that you were almost holding your breath to see what condition they arrived in. But now I am completely relaxed about it.
I can’t remember the last time we had a horse produce a high temperature or get travel sick when coming over. IRT (International Racehorse Transport) and the whole team there do a wonderful job with it.
Generally you find if they travel well on the aircraft, when they arrive they just just check that they don’t spike a temperature in the first 48 hours and if they don’t you’re in pretty good shape.
Gold Trip was slated to come out and run in the Cox Plate but also has an entry for the Melbourne Cup. Although Rodrigo Diaz has come out of the Melbourne Cup, that will have no bearing on our decision as to whether to run him in the race thereafter. He would need to run very well in the Cox Plate and, if he did, we’d certainly consider him, but he’s another one, with 57 kilograms allocated for the Cup, he’s weighted up to his best, that’s for sure.
On his one go at 3000 metres in France he was very good. So it’s something we’d certainly consider if he were to run well in the Cox Plate.
Incentivise paying price for winning WFA Group 1
The talking point from the Melbourne Cup weights released last Tuesday was Incentivise, who was given a hike to 55.5 kilograms off the back of his win in the Makybe Diva Stakes.
Maybe if connections had their time over they may not have run in a weight for age Group 1 race the Saturday before the weights are released!
He’s clearly a very good horse and history might show that he deserves that weight. He’s certainly untapped and does everything that you could want a horse to do on the way to the Melbourne Cup. But, one thing’s for sure, he was very impressive last week.
Maybe if you compare his record to others, such as Verry Elleegant and the number of Group 1s she’s won, they’re probably entitled to feel they are a little bit heavy in the weights.
The first two-year-old trials were held this week and we had a couple of juveniles trial at Kensington on Monday. They’ll both head for breaks now but they’re coming along well and will be early two-year-olds.
As for the new first season stallions, from what I’ve seen so far, the talk’s very good on the Hellbents. They sold very well this year and they were very precocious looking horses. Invader is another that the talk’s quite good on, but there’s a long way to go yet.