A lengthy journey could be the reward for Post D’France if he performs well early in a preparation that begins in Saturday’s Jim Conway Handicap at Sandown.
Post D’France improved rapidly once he joined the Steven Brown stable at Flemington with the gelding winning five of nine starts after arriving from New Zealand last year.
Brown will give the five-year-old a chance to prove he is worthy of a trip to the Northern Territory for the Darwin Cup.
“The Darwin Cup is in the back of our minds because it’s worth $200,000 so it’s not to be sneezed at,” Brown said.
“If he came up well in his first two or three runs, we might take him up to Darwin but we’ll get through Saturday first.”
The Darwin Cup will not be run until August and Brown says he will assess Post D’France’s suitability for the race in the coming weeks.
Brown said he would need to get Post D’France to Darwin early enough to give him plenty of time to acclimatise to the hot conditions of the Top End.
Brown knows Darwin’s conditions well after riding in 11 Darwin Cups before winning the event as a trainer with Mr Tambourineman in 2004.
The trainer still keeps a stable in Darwin and will look to have a team of 10 horses to compete at the Darwin Cup carnival.
Clients of Brown’s bought Post D’France as a tried horse and the trainer said he would like to return to specialising in purchasing that type of horse after dabbling in the yearling market.
“I’m always on the lookout for a tried horse to buy again,” Brown said.
“It’s better for us to be looking for a horse with exposed form that we could improve a little bit rather than buying a yearling and waiting a while to see whether they make the grade.”
The TAB rated Post D’France as a $21 outsider in the opening market on Saturday’s $80,000 contest.
Pillar Of Creation is the $4 favourite after his solid first-up second at Flemington while the John Sadler-trained Lonrockstar is the second pick at $5.50.
