Grand campaigner Precedence will be reunited with one of his old friends when he runs his final race in the Sandown Cup.
Trainer James Cummings has asked long-time Melbourne stable foreman Reg Fleming to help him saddle the horse and accompany him at Sandown on Saturday.
Fleming will then take Precedence home to a farm in Victoria where he will be re-trained as a show horse, joining former Bart Cummings-trained stablemates Sirmione and Moatize.
The 10-year-old will be ridden at Sandown by Melbourne Cup-winning jockey Michelle Payne who claimed her first Group One victory aboard Allez Wonder in the 2009 Toorak Handicap for Precedence’s owner Dato Tan Chin Nam and the late Bart Cummings.
Dato Tan Chin Nam’s Australian manager Duncan Ramage said it was fitting Precedence would stay with Fleming and that Payne would be aboard for his racetrack farewell.
“Michelle rode her first Group One winner for Dato and Bart and also had her first Melbourne Cup ride for them on Allez Wonder,” Ramage said.
“Reg spent a lot of time with Precedence at Saintly Place in Melbourne and James thought it was only fitting he be a part of his final race.”
Connections decided not to push on for a fifth attempt at the Melbourne Cup (3200m) after Precedence ran second-last in the Moonee Valley Cup.
They instead opted for the Listed Sandown Cup over the Melbourne Cup distance.
“He pulled up so well from Moonee Valley we wanted to send him off in style,” Ramage said.
While Malaysia-based Dato Tan has many retired horses on his Think Big Stud in the NSW Southern Highlands, Ramage said Precedence would be ideally suited to a different life.
“He is a good-gaited horse and the type to make a dressage-show horse,” he said.
“Anyway we were a poor third on the list to get him.
“Reg was first and (co-owner) the Dowager Duchess of Bedford said she wanted to take him back to Woburn Abbey in England.”
Precedence will be having his 69th start on Saturday and his earnings stand just short of $2 million.
