Aspetar faces his biggest task in the 100th running of the Cox Plate

We are hugely excited that Aspetar is in Australia to run in the Cox Plate in the early hours of the morning. We will all be glued to the tv at 615am on Saturday morning as it is a huge honour to have a shot at the prize versus the best in Australia and others from Europe.

Its been a massive effort from everyone in the team to get him there having planned the trip since August, and its safe to say none of it was made easier by Covid.

Ben James has been down with Aspetar in Melbourne, having spent 2 weeks in quarantine in Sydney on arrival in a hotel, which can’t have been a lot of fun, and he seems to have Aspetar in great shape for the race tomorrow.

We have a lot of respect for the likes of Russian Camelot and Arcadia Queen, and obviously know about Sir Dragonet, Buckhurst and Armory all who bring strong European form. It’s a strong race, as it should be given the prestige and the prize on offer. Aspetar has had a light campaign with this race in mind and his last race at York was impressive as he swept past a good field in taking fashion.

We have been watching a lot of weather radars from the Melbourne area and having thought there would be a lot of rain this weekend, it appeared to miss Friday racing at Moonee Valley and seemingly there were multiple track records. As I write this though, it would appear they are getting a good soaking which we are happy about as Aspetar has good form when there is cut and obviously he stays further than 10, having won a G1 over 2400m last year.

Damian Lane takes the ride and we are very lucky to have him as he has quickly developed in to a world-class jockey in Australia and in the Far East as he won the Cox Plate, Caulfield Cup, Golden Slipper and Arima Kinen in 2019. He rode Quest for More for us in the Melbourne Cup in 2015. He sat on him last Saturday at the Valley in a routine piece of work.

Since then Tom Charlton and Damian took a view on which draw they would like and having been drawn out the hat second they were able to get stall 3. Its nice to have an inside draw and we just hope the inside doesn’t get chopped up too much from the earlier races.

Its very exciting and we hope he runs a huge race for Sheikh Mohammed and all the team at Al Shahania. Aspetar means a lot to them as he was their first homebred G1 thoroughbred winner. We are deeply disappointed that we can’t be in Australia to experience the full Cox Plate extravaganza and are hugely appreciative of how Aspetar has been looked after by everyone in Australia. Moonee Valley, Weribee, Racing Victoria and all those that work for them have been hugely impressive.