Tony McEvoy’s decision to bring two-year-old Tikitour to Melbourne for Thursday’s Anzac Day Stakes is as much about the future as anything else.
The last-start Gawler winner could have been kept in South Australia for last Saturday’s Group Three Sires’ Produce Stakes, won by stablemate The Voice, but McEvoy decided the Listed Flemington race and a trip away was the better option.
“He’s quite an immature horse and I had the option of running him in the Sires’ (in Adelaide) or bring him to Melbourne and I thought the trip away would turn him into a man,” McEvoy said.
“It’s an aggressive plan for a last-start Gawler winner but he did run well in the Adelaide Magic Millions and that’s quite a good form race.”
Tikitour is one of two last start winners in Thursday’s $120,000 event over 1410m along with the unbeaten Long John who is an odds-on favourite.
McEvoy believes Tikitour is a promising young horse but said it was too early to tell what level he could reach.
“He hasn’t arrived as a horse yet but the reason I’m running him at Flemington is because I do like him,” McEvoy said.
