After a clean sweep of last season’s Group One juvenile events the Darley team begins its assault on this year’s Blue Diamond series on Australia Day.
Stable rider Kerrin McEvoy will head to Caulfield to ride impressive Melbourne Cup week winner Applegate in Thursday’s Listed Blue Diamond Preview (1000m) for fillies.
The Peter Snowden-trained Applegate is a $13 chance in early betting for next month’s $1 million Blue Diamond (1200m) and McEvoy is keen to see the progression the filly has made since he rode her to her debut win at Flemington in November.
“I haven’t ridden her in trackwork or anything since I won on her at Flemington but Peter is happy with her and I’m really interested to see how she’s going to come up this time through,” McEvoy said.
“Her win on Cup day was a pretty special win. She gave me a good feel and the form out of that race has been good.”
Appelgate closed quickly to win the Listed Emirates Plate (1000m) down the straight.
Alezan Thunder was third that day and has subsequently won at Sandown and finished third in the $2 million Magic Millions Classic at the Gold Coast.
While McEvoy hasn’t had the opportunity to ride Applegate in work in recent weeks due to his Sydney commitments, he doesn’t see it as an issue ahead of the Blue Diamond series opener.
“She’s a straightforward filly and Mark Zahra and Paul (Snowden) have been doing the work with her,” McEvoy said.
“She’s a two-year-old that’s only had one run and one win so we’re still learning about her as well. You’d like to think she’ll go to Caulfield and do everything right and be hard to beat on Thursday.”
McEvoy rode the winners of all five Group One two-year-old races in Australia last season with Sepoy taking out the Blue Diamond-Golden Slipper double.
Helmet claimed the AJC Sires’ Produce Stakes and Champagne Stakes while the clean sweep for Sheikh Mohammed’s Darley Australia came when Benfica won the TJ Smith Stakes in Brisbane in June.
Benfica makes his long-awaited return since his Group One triumph in Thursday’s Listed Zeditave Stakes (1200m), a race McEvoy won on Denman two years ago.
“He (Benfica) started off his preparation up here in Sydney and only went down to Melbourne a couple of weeks ago. He’s come back nicely,” McEvoy said.
“He’s a nice horse going to look to get over a bit further but we’ll hopefully see him perform well fresh.”
AAP TURF
