A change in his travel routine is expected to help spark Group One winner Famous Seamus back to top form during his fourth Brisbane campaign.
Famous Seamus returns to the scene of his biggest win when he contests the Group Two Victory Stakes (1200m) at Doomben on Saturday.
Famous Seamus
The gelding has been well beaten in three runs since a spell with the latest 13th behind Chautauqua in the Group One T J Smith Stakes on April 2.
But trainer Noel Mayfield-Smith is confident Famous Seamus is ready for the winter carnival races including the Group One BTC Cup which he won two years ago.
Mayfield-Smith has decided to take the gelding home to Hawkesbury between his Brisbane runs.
“A few of the Sydney trainers have been doing it successfully. We can get straight on the freeway and head north,” Mayfield-Smith said.
“The key to Famous Seamus is dry tracks. He needs it really firm. So instead of having him up there all the time, he will be going back and forward depending on the weather.”
“He has done it before to Melbourne in the spring when he won a Group Three race (Heffernan Stakes).”
“Famous Seamus has won a trial since the TJ Smith and I was pleased with the effort. Give us a dry track and he should be back to near his best.”
Mayfield Smith said Famous Seamus would be kept to the weight for age races during the winter – the Victory Stakes, BTC Cup and Doomben 10,000.
The now seven-year-old gelding won two Queensland Listed races in 2013, the Hinkler Quality and Prime Minister’s Cup, before wet tracks ruined his chances in the Group One sprints.
He was fifth in the George Moore Stakes in Brisbane in the late summer of 2013 before returning in 2014 to win BTC Cup (1200m).
Famous Seamus missed last winter, which ironically was the driest for many years in Brisbane.
Mayfield Smith will also take juvenile Waldo Waldorf to Brisbane for Saturday’s 1100m-race for two-year-olds.
“I hope he might measure up to some of the better two-year-old races during the winter,” he said.
