Gust Of Wind ready for Melbourne Cup

Tuesday 27 October 2015, 3:49pm

Gust Of Wind will not race again before the Melbourne Cup with trainer John Sargent confident she is at her peak.

The Australian Oaks winner worked with stablemate Thunder Lady on Tuesday morning on the course proper at Flemington and Sargent was delighted with the hit-out and, more importantly, Gust Of Wind's recovery.

He entered her for Saturday's Mackinnon Stakes in case he felt she needed to run but confirmed after her gallop she would go straight to next week's Melbourne Cup.

"I went back and checked on her and she was straight into her breakfast and it was like she hadn't even had a gallop," Sargent said.

"She won't need another run. I just spoke to (jockey) Chad Schofield. We're all ready to go for the Cup."

Because Gust Of Wind can be a lazy track worker, Sargent put her race day blinkers on for Tuesday's gallop to make sure she concentrated after she was trounced in a pre-Caulfield Cup hit-out by Volkstok'n'barrell.

Gust Of Wind, who ran fourth in the Caulfield Cup, and Thunder Lady were timed at 24.04 seconds for their last 400m in 24.04 seconds with Gust Of Wind just in front on the line.

Thunder Lady will try to force her way into the Melbourne Cup in Saturday's Lexus Stakes (2500m) at Flemington which carries a ballot exemption for the winner.

"She's 30th in the order of entry so she'll probably have to win (the Lexus) to get in," Sargent said.

"She'll be primed for Saturday and we know she loves Flemington."

– AAP

Latest News

Prime Thoroughbreds - We have a Host of Leaders in our Team

Tuesday, 29 June 2021

Prime Thor­ough­bred’s cur­rent rac­ing team is putt­ing to­gether quite a re­cord. We have 22 hors­es that have raced in our team at pre­sent. Six­teen of th­ese are win­n­ers in­clud­ing the Stakes win­n­ing trio Ru­bisa­ki, Fituese and Xtreme­time with Miss Di­vine Em and Miss In Charge run­n­ing 4th in Stakes races. This sees a stakes win­n­er to win­n­er ra­tio of 18.75% with a stake’s per­formed to win­n­er ra­tio of 31.25%. Th­ese are ex­cep­tio­n­al fig­ures.   More »

Freedmans land maiden Group One win

Saturday, 27 February 2021

Un­der-rat­ed fil­ly For­bid­den Love has emerged as an au­tumn car­ni­val smokey with a bril­liant per­for­mance to win the Sur­round Stakes at Rand­wick.  More »

Capriccio completes Damian Lane treble

Saturday, 27 February 2021

In a big day for coun­try-trained hors­es, War­r­nam­bool fil­ly Capric­cio has tak­en out the In­glis Dash for Daniel Bow­man.  More »

More news headlines »