After a win in a Mildura maiden, Swan Hill-trained Messignadi will make her city debut at Sandown.
A poor draw made the decision easy for Austy Coffey to bypass his local carnival at Swan Hill and head to town with debut winner Messignadi.
Coffey had 20 runners spread across the three-day Swan Hill Carnival, but was not prepared to start Messignadi from an outside barrier over 1300m at the track on Saturday.
Instead, Coffey will make the trip to Sandown on Wednesday to start the filly in the Tile Importer Handicap (1300m).
“She drew 14, but if she had drawn a good gate, we probably would have run her,” Coffey said.
“She drew too bad against old mares and I thought I’d give her a chance against her own age instead.”
Messignadi has faced the starter just once, winning a Mildura 1000m maiden on May 30.
Coffey said the filly, a daughter of Turffontein, went about her work in good style, but conceded the opposition may not have been the strongest.
“We’re hoping the trip will suit her and I see it’s a soft 7, I’m happy about that, rather than it being a heavy 10,” Coffey said.
“She probably doesn’t know what rain-affected ground would be at all, so that’s a query.
“The company she’s up against is a query, whether she’s good enough to be there, but she’s the right age, she’s a nice filly and she hasn’t done much wrong.
“She’ll probably go to the paddock after the run.
“It would be good to get a city win under the belt and if she did win outstanding, you would probably think about going back down again.
“But we’ll see what happens tomorrow and make a decision after that.”
Coffey’s son Harry, who scored a rare city win aboard the Lindsay Park-trained Biometric at Caulfield last month, heads to Sandown on Wednesday to ride the filly, his only ride at the meeting.
