Owner Peter Tighe is a late entry in the list of the owners of Cox Plate runners on Saturday after purchasing a ten per cent share in El Bodegon, who is one of two entries from the Chris Waller stable, along with Hinged, for the $5 million contest.
The lightly raced import, a son of Kodiac, who will be having his first run in Australia in the Cox Plate, has won three of his nine starts.
Those three wins all came in his first five starts and, although he has not saluted since October 2021, he showed his prowess in his last three runs in Europe for trainer James Ferguson when claiming a second and a third place in Group 1 races at Chantilly and Longchamp before finishing third in a Group 2 at York on August 17, 2022.
He was then imported and was placed with the Chris Waller stable.
It will be a very different Cox Plate experience for Tighe this time around after he and his co-owners reached the stratosphere of ownership achievement in the 2018 Cox Plate when the mighty Winx won the Cox Plate for the fourth time amid fan frenzy.
The level of pressure and expectation will obviously be far less than on that occasion, but that does not detract from the fact that Tighe is now lining up a fifth Cox Plate win as an owner … which is obviously no mean feat in itself.
El Bodegon is currently on the fourth line of betting at $9 … behind Anamoe, Zaaki and I’m Thunderstruck who have been marked up at $2.50, $4.50 and $7.50 respectively.Winx’s