Messene has stretched his winning streak to five at Canterbury to seal a treble for the Hawkes training partnership which began with the introduction of a live Magic Millions contender.
Invisible got the ball rolling with his debut victory in the two-year-old and Maysoon brought a race-to-race double while Messene won the final event at a rare Saturday meeting at the track.
Messene - Photo by Steve Hart
All three were steered by James McDonald who has won 10 races from his past 31 rides.
Michael Hawkes, representing the team which also includes his brother Wayne and father John, said Messene would have a let-up and come back to be prepared for a tilt at autumn riches.
“He could possibly head to the Doncaster,” Hawkes said.
“Three winners for the day is a good result and Bugatty ran second in Melbourne.”
Bugatty was runner-up to Chivalry in the 1000m race for two-year-olds at Moonee Valley.
Invisible’s win has him into second favouritism for the $2 million Magic Millions Classic (1200m) at the Gold Coast on January 11 with the market headed by Unencumbered, winner of the B J McLachlan at Doomben.
“He’s booked his ticket to the Magic Millions which has always been the race we had in mind,” Hawkes said.
“He has been a lovely horse from day one and is a relaxed, cool, calm and collected customer.
“We trialled him on Tuesday ahead of today which is not something we would usually do with two-year-olds but we knew what we had.
