Forgot You bids for Cox Plate 2023 start

Unbeaten at Moonee Valley, Forgot You may be the forgotten horse in the Feehan Stakes.

That is what his trainers Trent Busuttin and Natalie Young are banking on when the now five-year-old entire runs in the Group 2 weight-for-age contest over 1600m on Saturday.

Forgot You won three races at The Valley as a three-year-old, once at 1500m then in the Group 2 Stutt Stakes (1600m) and the Group 2 Vase (2040m) during the spring of 2021.

With Saturday’s race giving the winner a ballot exemption into the Group 1 Cox Plate (2040m) on October 28, Busuttin and Young earmarked the Feehan Stakes as an early spring target.

Forgot You spent 18 months away from the racetrack with a tendon injury last spring and resumed with a closing seventh to Mr Brightside in the Group 2 P B Lawrence Stakes (1400m) at Caulfield last month.

It was a run that pleased the stable, but ideally Busuttin and Young would have liked to be going third-up in Saturday’s contest.

“In the P B Lawrence, I thought he hit the line brilliantly,” Young said.

“That was all about having that run under his belt, hitting the line strong and pulling up sound.

“Ability wise he’s up to it, but he may just lack that little bit of fitness having been off with an injury.

“He’s taken a long time to come back, and he is second-up. I would have liked him to be third-up into this race as this was one of the goals for the prep.”

After his P B Lawrence outing, Busuttin and Young swam Forgot You for a few days to make sure there was no flare up of the injury.

But Young concedes she is worried whether Forgot You may have the ‘second-up syndrome’ after being off the scene for so long.

“When you’ve got that three-week gap between runs and coming off a long time out, you hope they don’t have that second-up syndrome and run a bit flat,” Young said.

“But if you run them two weeks after, it takes the edge off them a little bit and against this field in the Feehan on Saturday we’re going to need a good turn of foot.

“On his work on Tuesday, he’s still got it as he was really sharp.”

Young said in an ideal world Forgot You will be successful on Saturday allowing them to plan for the Cox Plate, but they are realistic to know it’s a tough race on Saturday.

“So, we’ll get through Saturday first,” Young said.

“We’ve basically got to take it each run at a time with him, but from a soundness point of view you wouldn’t know that he’s had an issue.”