Admire Deus set to battle ex stablemate

Friday 11 August 2017, 5:22pm

Talented Japanese stayer Admire Deus remains on a path to the Melbourne and Caulfield Cups but will now fly the Australian flag.

The multiple Group Two winner is second favourite ($15) for the Melbourne Cup, where he may go head-to-head with former stablemate Albert - the horse central to his sale.

Australian Bloodstock pulled off the purchase this week in Japan after convincing Riichi Kondo, owner of 2014 Caulfield Cup winner Admire Ratki, to part with one of his premium stayers.

Their first offer was turned down before Kondo's organisation elected not to take two stayers to Australia and picked Albert over Admire Deus as their sole competitor.

"At that point, they came back to us and said if you're still interested, they would sell this horse and it evolved from there," Australian Bloodstock director Jamie Lovett told Sky Sports Radio.

It sets the scene for a clash between the former stablemates, with Australian Bloodstock and new trainer Darren Weir buoyant about a run towards the spring's two big staying handicaps on October 21 and November 7.

The Australian-bound seven-year-old had the better of his stablemate in the lightning-quick Group One Tenno Sho in April, finishing fourth.

Japan's stand-out stayer, Kitasan Black, won the two-mile race in 3 min 12.5 secs - almost four seconds faster than the Melbourne Cup record set in 1990.

"They do run on quite fast tracks and the tempo is set up to run those fast times but they've still got to do it," Lovett said.

"Clearly, Admire Deus runs the two miles and he does profile as the right horse (for the Melbourne Cup) but as we all know there is a lot to do to get a horse here and to race travelling horses."

If something were to go wrong, Lovett says Admire Deus will be saved for next year.

"But certainly, at this stage, all roads will lead to Melbourne," he said.

Australian Bloodstock also owns Melbourne Cup favourite Red Cardinal who is with Andreas Wohler who trained Protectionist for them to win the 2014 Cup.

Weir has sent staff to Japan to begin preparations for the spring carnival campaign.

Admire Deus is expected to arrive in Melbourne in late September or early October.

– 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 »