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SUTTON Grange trainer Brent Stanley is confident not many horses will strip fitter than his Jayco Bendigo Cup contender Red Alto.
The former Caulfield Cup-winning jockey will be the sole Bendigo region trainer with a runner in Wednesday’s $350,000 feature event with his race-hardened six-year-old gelding.
Red Alto is coming to the end of a lengthy winter and spring campaign, which brought a win in a $100,000 race at Randwick in August and a string of placings in races at Morphettville and Randwick, but his trainer is confident he has plenty in reserve for another big effort.
“Obviously it’s a very good race, a lot of these horses are on the cusp of going into the Melbourne Cup, but he has raced horses of this quality before and been very competitive with them,” Stanley said.
“He’s at the end of his long preparation, but is still racing well.
“He just got his tongue over the bit at his last start (when fifth in the Hamilton Cup), which he has never done before, so he will race with a tongue tie on.
“The start before that he was terribly unlucky from a bad draw in the Benalla Cup – he should have won that.
“He was placed in Sydney before that and won in Sydney before that. The horse is going well, his work is great and 2400 metres on his home track is a big plus for him.
“There won’t be many fitter horses in the field and with the tongue tie on it won’t surprise me if he is there at the end of the race.”
Stanley, who took up training in 2012 after 18 years in the saddle and has since chalked up 141 victories, described Red Alto’s Cindy Sullivan Memorial Handicap win at Randwick in August as one of his most satisfying as a trainer.
The gelding took on and beat eight rivals, each of them prepared by champion Winx’s trainer Chris Waller.
“It was a well deserved win for him, he’s been very unlucky in his runs – a lot of things need to go right for him and he’s drawn bad barriers, hence another one tomorrow (12),” Stanley said.
“But being the way the race will be run, he should slot into a nice spot.
“A lot of his rivals already have good Group form and there’s a few coming down from Sydney, but there was nothing that jumped out of the page and said it’s waste of time us running, and all going well we will be there at the death of it.”
There won’t be many fitter horses in the field and with the tongue tie on it won’t surprise me if he is there at the end of the race.
- Brent Stanley
Stanley said the strong 14-horse field, which included runners from the powerful Weir, Waller, McEvoy and Hayes and Dabernig stables, was a credit to the hard work of the Bendigo Jockey Club.
READ MORE: Weir galloper all the rage for Bendigo Cup
“Bendigo is by far and away one of the best tracks outside of the city and probably better than some tracks in the city,” he said.
“The people who run the club are very good people and it’s great that they will get a big day.
“Fingers crossed a big crowd turns up.”
Red Alto, who was fourth in the Group 1 Victoria Derby in 2015 at odds of 100-1, will be Stanley’s first Bendigo Cup runner.
While he previously trained at Kyneton before his move to Sutton Grange, Stanley considered himself very much a local and would like nothing more than to win his home cup.
He lives at Sedgwick, while his son Jett attends Girton Grammar.
Stanley will have three other runners on cup day, starting with As it Lies in race five and continuing with Shaq in race nine and Lucky Fish in race 10.
“As it Lies is first up over 1110 metres, she was due to run 10 days ago at Cranbourne but there was a bad fall and they got called off,” he said.
“She’s a gallop short, but 1100m against her own sex – she’s a pretty smart mare and on her home track – so fingers crossed she can provide us with our first winner of the day.”
Lucky Fish is undefeated in two starts on the Bendigo track, most recently on September 12, and has won five races from 13 starts since arriving at Sutton Grange form his former stable in New South Wales.
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