Floatmyboat’s return to winning form at Flemington is set to prolong the gelding’s summer campaign.
The Robbie Griffiths-trained galloper bounced back from two unplaced runs to notch his first win in almost a year in Saturday’s Chanteclair Handicap (1420m) and is now likely to run in next month’s Chester Manifold Stakes.
Griffiths was convinced Floatmyboat was building towards a win earlier this campaign after seconds at Cranbourne and Bendigo in October.
Floatmyboat, Ryan Maloney
However, the five-year-old then disappointed at his next two starts, finishing sixth at Flemington and ninth at Sandown two weeks ago.
Griffiths said the horse had excuses for those failures but insisted the gelding had to perform on Saturday otherwise he would be spelled.
Jockey Ryan Maloney settled back with a three-wide trail on Floatmyboat ($12) before working into the race well rounding the home turn.
Floatmyboat hit the front half-way up the straight and went on to score by a length over She’s Clean ($8.50) with Hero Master ($7) third.
“He came here and was disappointing on Oaks day,” Griffiths said.
“He didn’t run the 1600 metres that day and he did jar up and his joints were quite inflamed.
“He had a month between runs and went to Sandown and he disappointed us there but he didn’t scope that clean after the race.
“So we’ve come off two negative runs with veterinary reasons and today was D-day. If he didn’t fire today it was back to the paddock.”
