While it’s been a fantastic week or so for the yard at home, with four winners going in for the team, we’ve got our eyes now firmly fixed on our two horses Down Under: Docklands and Sea King. They both recently had a racecourse gallop at Moonee Valley, with Docklands’ Cox Plate rider Blake Shinn in the plate and Damian Lane aboard Sea King.
Docklands is in a great place ahead of the Cox Plate next Saturday. I’m really happy with where we’re at with him at the minute and all the team down with him have been pleased with how he travelled, has trained and is in himself. He seems to be dealing with the mental side of things too, which is a massive bonus given quarantine can be a bit of a test for horses sometimes. His piece of work at The Valley earlier this week will only help to sharpen him up a little mentally too, and we’re just so excited about Saturday.
It looks a really deep race at this stage, and it’s particularly interesting seeing the ex-George Boughey-trained Via Sistina at the head of some markets, as there are some related form lines with Docklands from her time in the UK. Right now, though, we’re just focusing on our guy and can’t wait for Saturday week.
We want to run Sea King in the Melbourne Cup on 5th November, but he’ll have to win a race in order to qualify. The ideal option would be the Bendigo Cup on 30th October, but should he not win that, we’ll also have the option of a consolation race for the Cup, so all won’t be lost.
I arrived in Oz over at weekend and it’s obviously a great thrill to be running two horses in big races halfway across the world, and I’ll be back for another blog next week as I give you the lowdown again on Docklands and Sea King!
Back home, as I’ve said, it’s been a really good time for us with the four winners going in: Inappropriate, Breathless Spirit, Realised and Mr Ubiquitous. It’s a nice way to bring the Flat season proper to a close, and a host of our big horses are now set for a little winter break. We will have a team for the all-weather over the winter, so keep an eye on the blog in the coming weeks for more on that.
Chat soon,
Harry