The connections of Blind Raise have aspirations of being a main player in some of the upcoming spring features with their campaign kicking off at Sandown.
The Listed McKenzie Stakes (1300m) on Saturday will potentially lead to a Group 1 contest, or two, in Melbourne and Sydney.
The Caulfield Guineas (1600m) on October 10 and the Spring Champion Stakes (2000m) at Randwick two weeks later are on the radar for the Trent Busuttin and Natalie Young-trained galloper.
But first he has to get through Saturday’s contest.
Busuttin said the trip at Sandown convinced the team it was a good starting point.
Saturday’s meeting is a Moonee Valley Racing Club fixture and had the race been run at The Valley it would have been over 1200m.
But with that track undergoing a rebuild, the fixture was moved to Sandown.
“He’s forward enough to run well,” Busuttin said.
“If this race was 1200 metres, we’d be waiting for the Mike Moroney (1400m at Flemington on Saturday week), so the way it has fallen, 1300 metres at Sandown, it’s perfect first-up.
“He’ll be strong late.”
Blind Raise won his first two starts, both at 1400m, before travelling to Queensland where he finished midfield in the BRC Sires’ Produce Stakes (1400m).
“He pulled up full of mucus up there,” Busuttin said.
“It was too bad to be true, so we didn’t push on and he had a month off up there.
“If they’re running in Queensland, they can only have two or three weeks off, but it appears to help them being up there.
“Years ago, everyone used to do it, and for whatever reason people stopped, but now they’ve gone back to doing it.
“Does it do them any good, I don’t know.
“If they’re a good horse, they can come from anywhere.”
Busuttin hopes to find out how good Blind Raise is this campaign.
He said the Caulfield Guineas was the logical race to aim at.
“But you have to get there,” Busuttin said.
“The Caulfield Guineas, then the Spring Champion Stakes, that might be a nice race for him, but in a perfect world, he will end up in the Caulfield Guineas.”
