Sandown not Bendigo to Chavuma

Tuesday 15 March 2016, 2:12pm

Lightly raced Chavuma is entered for the Bendigo Guineas but trainer Brendan McCarthy favours running the gelding in midweek company at Sandown.

Chavuma ran second at the track last month before breaking through for a maiden win at Bendigo on March 1 and is set to chase his first city win in Wednesday's The Cove Hotel Handicap (1400m).

McCarthy said with the Listed Bendigo Guineas on Saturday also an option he decided to accept for Sandown and then look at the entries and potential field for Saturday's Bendigo feature.

The Bendigo Guineas has 24 nominations with Chavuma 21st in the ballot.

"I've had a flick though it and at the moment I'll probably stay at Sandown," McCarthy said.

"It's not that he's not good enough for the Bendigo Guineas, but he's still learning and getting a bit better with experience."

McCarthy has trained a number of horses out of Chavuma's dam Miss Zambezi including the three-year-old's city-winning sister Zambezi Diamond who McCarthy believes is in for a good winter this year.

Another of his Chavuma's siblings is eight-year-old Commanding Time, a winner up to 2046 metres.

"I've got a lot of time for Chavuma," McCarthy said.

"He's going to get over a bit of ground and even though he's a three-year-old he's still a big baby.

"I've trained most of the others out of the mare and had some success with them. I know the family pretty well."

McCarthy said the Port Adelaide Guineas later in the season was a stakes option for Chavuma.

"I think each start that he's having he's just learning more and will be getting better," the trainer said.

Chris Symons, who rode the gelding in his first two starts for placings at Moonee Valley and Sandown, is back aboard on Wednesday.

– 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 »