Queensland Derby favourite Shootoff is a definite starter in Saturday’s Group One Doomben Cup with Michael Rodd to ride.
The Graeme Rogerson stable was quick to refute reports on Monday that Shootoff would not contest the 2020m race.
The three-year-old’s win over older horses in the Lord Mayor’s Cup (1900m) at Canterbury on May 7 propelled him to $5 favouritism for the Derby (2400m) at Eagle Farm on June 11 with the Doomben Cup to be his final lead-up.
“He is a definite starter in the Doomben Cup and Michael Rodd will ride him,” Rogerson’s Sydney foreman Roger Elliott said.
“He has done really well since his last win and will go up late in the week and the plan is to bring him back home to Sydney after the race.
“He won’t race again before the Derby and will have the three weeks off between the Doomben Cup and then.”
Shootoff gave his sire Duelled his first stakes winner when he took out the Frank Packer Plate on a heavy track at Randwick last month.
The stable had hoped the milestone might have happened earlier.
After Shootoff finished third in the Group One Spring Champion Stakes he was set on a path to the Victoria Derby.
But after his fifth in the AAMI Vase (2040m) Shootoff finished ninth in the Classic, 19 lengths from runaway winner Lion Tamer.
His immaturity was a factor then and it took him time to hit his straps this autumn.
After four unplaced runs he finished third in the Tulloch Stakes before his Frank Packer victory.
“He’s learned how to race now while before he just thought everything was a big joke,” Elliott said.
“We changed tactics to try and make him race a bit more forward to get him on the ball and it seems to have worked.”
Like his son, Duelled was trained by Rogerson and finished third in the Spring Champion Stakes before winning the AAMI Vase and running a close second to Benicio in the Victoria Derby.
The Derby was his last race and he became the foundation sire at Rogerson’s Dormello Stud in New Zealand.
The last three-year-old to win the Doomben Cup was Akhenaton in 2000.
AAP TURF
