JUST days after lamenting that his spring carnival assault was going awry, owner Lloyd Williams now has prime candidates for the Melbourne Cup and Cox Plate following a profitable weekend, highlighted by yesterday's Turnbull Stakes win by nine-year-old Zipping, reports The Age.It says: On Saturday, C'est La Guerre won his first race for the owner and a few hours later import Mourayan improved out of sight to finish second in the Metropolitan at Randwick, but Zipping saved the best for last when
JUST days after lamenting that his spring carnival assault was going awry, owner Lloyd Williams now has prime candidates for the Melbourne Cup and Cox Plate following a profitable weekend, highlighted by yesterday's Turnbull Stakes win by nine-year-old Zipping, reports The Age.
It says: On Saturday, C'est La Guerre won his first race for the owner and a few hours later import Mourayan improved out of sight to finish second in the Metropolitan at Randwick, but Zipping saved the best for last when he beat Melbourne Cup favourite Shocking and race favourite Shoot Out in a thrilling finish at Flemington.
''He's a marvel to be able to do that at nine years of age,'' Williams said. ''We've aimed him to do a Fields Of Omagh and win a Cox Plate as a nine-year-old ... Bart's horse [So You Think] might have something to say about that but you've got to give it to this horse. He's quite incredible.''
Starting at $17 despite winning the Australian Cup over the same course in March, Zipping turned in his usual late finish to hold off Shocking ($5.50) by a long-head, with Shoot Out ($5) a half-head away third.
Jockey Nick Hall lost 20 per cent of his winning riding fee on Zipping after stewards found him guilty of excessive use of the whip over the final stages. Stewards fined Hall $3000 just six months after he incurred a $1000 fine for the same rule breach when he won the Australian Cup on Zipping.
While Zipping will be Williams's Cox Plate hope, both Mourayan and C'est La Guerre will head towards the Melbourne Cup, but on different paths. Williams said Mourayan would run next in the Caulfield Cup but C'est La Guerre will be kept away from group 1 company until the Melbourne Cup.
''C'est La Guerre might go to a race like the Coongy as when he ran third in the Melbourne Cup [2008] he didn't have a run beyond 2000 metres in the lead-up and we'll do the same this year.''
Williams was upbeat about Mourayan's Melbourne Cup chances. ''I was talking to [Irish trainer] John Oxx this morning and he told me that I will win a major cup with that horse now that I've got him going and got him thinking,'' he said.