Matt Cumani’s chances of winning Saturday’s Lexus Melbourne Cup Tour Trophy at Flemington were not only enhanced by Ciaron Maher’s decision to keep Decalogue in Sydney, it doubled his representation in the race.
Cumani now has the favourite, Brave Danza, for the $150,000 event over 2000 metres, along with Think Your Amazing, the second emergency.
Think Your Amazing, a son of So You Think, hasn’t started since his narrow second placing over 2238m at Werribee on April 24, and while Cumani still considers Brave Danza his best chance, he was delighted to see him sneak a run.
“He’s had a little let-up just to try and prolong his three-year-old season a little bit so that we can try and get to the Mahogany Series Final,” Cumani said.
“But he would probably need the run on Saturday.”
Think Your Amazing, who will be ridden by Eoin Walsh, is a $23 chance with Brave Danza promoted to the $4.80 top line after the scratching of Decalogue and Engine Of War.
Brave Danza is chasing back-to-back Flemington wins after a strong victory over 2000m on May 16.
That was the eighth top-three finish from 10 starts for the gelded son of Brave Smash, whose only misses are a debut ninth placing over 1200m at Geelong and a 10th of 11 in the Group 2 Tulloch Stakes (2000m) three runs ago.
He rises 5kg to 57.5kg for Saturday’s race, in which he will again be ridden by Luke Cartwright, and while he will start from the outside gate Cumani believes the grounding he gave him early in his career might help him offset that.
“I was very keen to always try and have him ridden with cover, try and have him at the back of the race and that probably cost us a few races early on, but I think it’s taught him how to race properly” Cumani said.
“Obviously he’s paid the price handicap wise, but even with the increase in weight I would say he will still be very competitive.”
