FLEMINGTON trainer Mark Kavanagh will have the favourite in the three major spring carnival races in Melbourne over the next seven weeks if the most crucial missing piece to the puzzle can fall neatly into place at Caulfield on Saturday, reports The Age. It says: The Underwood Stakes will assemble a quality field including Shamrocker, Precedence, Lights Of Heaven, Scarlett Lady and Lion Tamer, but the result of the group 1 race will not have as big a bearing on the cups as the listed Naturalism
FLEMINGTON trainer Mark Kavanagh will have the favourite in the three major spring carnival races in Melbourne over the next seven weeks if the most crucial missing piece to the puzzle can fall neatly into place at Caulfield on Saturday, reports The Age.
It says: The Underwood Stakes will assemble a quality field including Shamrocker, Precedence, Lights Of Heaven, Scarlett Lady and Lion Tamer, but the result of the group 1 race will not have as big a bearing on the cups as the listed Naturalism Stakes. That race is free from the ballot for next month's $2.5 million Caulfield Cup and if Kavanagh's import December Draw can win the 2000-metre race, as expected, he will be installed as the firm favourite for the Caulfield and Melbourne Cups regardless of what occurs in the Underwood.
December Draw is not qualified to run in either cup but a win in the Naturalism gets him into the Caulfield Cup, when a top-eight placing qualifies him for the Melbourne Cup.
''I'm very pleased with how he's raced this time back and how's he's gone on since, but the trick for Saturday's race is to have him well enough to win and still leave some improvement left for the Caulfield Cup,'' Kavanagh said yesterday.
Kavanagh also reported that his Cox Plate favourite Whobegotyou had pulled up well from his luckless third in last Saturday's Dato Tan Chin Nam Stakes.