Eight-year-old stalwart Sikandarabad will look to give his trainer Sam Kavanagh his second win in the Listed Scone Cup (1600m) on Friday.
Sam Kavanagh won the Scone Cup back in 2015 with USA bred Tales Of Grimm.
Sikandarabad hasn’t won since claiming the Coffs Harbour Cup in August last year but has been placed in Group and Listed company since.
The son of Dr Fong had more than a month off after finishing a strong fourth in the Muswellbrook Cup and was disappointing when beaten 6 lengths at Hawkesbury last time out.
Kavanagh says he regrets racing him at Hawkesbury but believes the eight-year-old is a great chance to bounce back on Friday.
“We went to Hawkesbury thinking he was a great chance. I sort of regret running him now, the track was too firm and he didn’t like it,” he said.
“He seems to have come through it pretty well, he worked this (Tuesday) morning on the course proper at Muswellbrook and we were pretty happy with him.
“It’s going to be pretty soft track at Scone which will suit him, and being a local track he’s trialled there a few times.
“Will Price is coming up from Victoria to ride him for us, if he turns up to the form he was in Muswellbrook Cup day, where he was unlucky with 62kgs, with 54kgs I think he’d be a great chance.”
Prior to his win in the Coffs Harbour Cup, Sikandarabad had not won since February 2019.
He joined the Kavanagh stable in the middle of 2020 and his form has been great since entering the stable.
It’s not unfamiliar that a city trained horse going to the country can improve, but Kavanagh says it’s taken more than just the country lifestyle to get the son of Dr Fong firing.
“My partner is an equine therapist, she does massage, acupuncture, and a few other things and that has made a difference,” he said.
“He does have a lot of issues with his muscles. I’m very lucky to have her in the stables all the time and she’s made a huge difference to the horse.
“He lost form for us as well over the summer, but he just couldn’t handle the firmer ground and I was reluctant to give him a long spell thinking it was going to be a reasonably wet summer.
“Now we’ve got a little bit of juice in the ground again and Kelly can do her work on him and that’s sort of made all the difference.”
Kavanagh has only been back in the training ranks for 12 months, after copping a ban in 2015 due to cobalt related offences.
Based in Scone, Kavanagh looks to rebuild his team from the ground up, securing Ever Loyal, a former Listed winner in New Zealand, and European import Visinari.
Kavanagh says most of his team are yet to be seen publicly, with an eye on Sydney in the coming years.
“We’re a very young stable, we’ve not even been back 12 months yet and a majority of our horses are unraced and yearlings,” he said.
“We’ve gone very very hard at the yearling sales this year, we’ve got a plan to be back very competitive in the metropolitan area over the next three years and we’ve bought horses from Europe, all around Australia and we’ve put our systems in place.
“We’re not going to get to be a massive sort of stable, we like to be able to give each horse their time and I like being more boutique I guess, rather than the large conveyor belt.
“That’s something that we’re very focussed on.”
Sikandarabad is currently a $26 chance for the Scone Cup with tab.com.au.
