The Goodwood winner Despatch is on his way to Brisbane to contest the Group 1 $1.5m Stradbroke Handicap (1400m) at Eagle Farm on June 8.
The Goodwood winner, Despatch, above, heads to Brisbane for the 2019 Stradbroke Handicap at Eagle Farm Photo by Jenny Barnes.
The Tony McEvoy trained Despatch will join stablemate’s Dollar For Dollar and Manuel in the Stradbroke Handicap line up after rising to the occasion with an all the way win in the Group 1 $750,000 The Goodwood (1200m) at Morphettville last Saturday.
Despatch made it four wins from his last four starts with his Goodwood win and McEvoy booked him on a flight from Melbourne to Brisbane after giving him the all clear on Sunday morning.
“He trotted up level and headed to Melbourne. I have a flight booked on Tuesday morning to fly straight to Brisbane,” McEvoy told Radio TAB’s Past The Post.
“I already have Dollar For Dollar, Manuel and I’m A Princess in Brisbane.”
McEvoy said that Despatch just kept on stepping up to the mark and with his win in The Goodwood earned himself another trip to the Sunshine State.
“He had just kept taking us there. And why not, he had won the traditional lead up to the Goodwood, he had won three out of three,” McEvoy said.
“I thought that even now it is a set weights and penalty race and not a true handicap where he wasn’t as well in as he could have been in a true handicap, we thought why not, we might as well go there.”
“He came out and led from the front and did it all.”
“He has just kept stepping it up. That is four out of four this preparation, and he just raising the bar and everything I can throw at him he is handling with ease.”
“I took him to Queensland for the Magic Millions so I always thought something of him. He won the Magic Millions Clockwise Classic at Ballarat and he ran third in the Phelan Ready and pulled up lame and chipped a bone in his knee which ruled out the rest of his two year old campaign.”
“He is a horse that has always had the talent and he has come back from that knee surgery and now he is just coming into his own.”
Despatch is marked at $15 for the Stradbroke Handicap at Ladbrokes.com.au while Dollar For Dollar is ahead of him at $12 and Manuel is rated a $41 chance.
Dollar For Dollar ran a mighty race for a third behind The Bostonian in the Group 1 $800,000 Doomben 10,000 (1200m) at Doomben on May 11 while Manuel ran an uncharacteristic last in the thirteen horse field.
Early betting for the 2019 Stradbroke Handicap at Ladbrokes.com.au: $7.50 The Bostonian, $8 Home Of The Brave, Trekking, $9 Zoustyle, $11 Encryption, Tyzone, $12 Dollar For Dollar, $13 Con Te Partiro, Outback Barbie, Victorem, $15 Chapter And Verse, Despatch, I Am Excited, Iconoclasm, Ringerdingding, Viridine, Zoutori, $17 Boomsara, Noble Boy, Plague Stone, Spright, Widgee Turf, $21 Archedemus, Gem Song, Invincibella, Vega One, $26 or better the rest.
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