Aktau on target towards the Mornington Cup

Saturday 22 February 2020, 1:40pm

Imported stayer Aktau has landed a second win on Australian soil with a late finishing burst at Caulfield.

The Moroney-trained galloper has now had three starts since arriving from Europe and added Saturday's Keno Classic Handicap (2000m) to an earlier win at Flemington.

Aktau will be aimed at the Mornington Cup (2400m) on March 21 with the winner of that race gaining a ballot exemption into the Caulfield Cup (2400m) in October.

Moroney said he was undecided whether Aktau would need another start before the Mornington Cup.

Ridden by Jye McNeil, Aktau ($4) scored by a long neck from Inverloch ($18), who set the pace, with Future Score ($7.50) a length away third.

A four-year-old, Aktau was purchased with the big spring Cups races in mind and Moroney said the gelding lacks maturity in both body and mind.

"He's still a work in progress and doing it upside down at times," Moroney said.

"Once he learns what it's all about, the talent is certainly there.

"We'd like to run in the Mornington Cup all going well now which will get him that ticket back here if we can.

"He's still got a lot of improvement in him and it will be good to see him up over his right trip once he learns to relax and go the Australian pace."

– 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 »