Trainer Tony McEvoy plans to give Herbert Power Stakes winner Big Memory a very quiet week ahead of the 2014 Caulfield Cup this weekend.
Big Memory stayed on strongly to win the 2014 Herbert Power Stakes at Caulfield on Saturday and will back up in the Caulfield Cup this weekend. Photo by: Race Horse Photos Australia
Big Memory went into the Group 2 Herbert Power Stakes (2400m) at Caulfield on Saturday needing to win the race to earn a place in the 2014 Caulfield Cup field and the Duke Of Marmalade held-off a fast-finishing Signoff and Let’s Make Adeal and survived a protest to win the Group 2 event.
McEvoy said that he just wants to maintain the fitness levels of Big Memory heading into the Group 1 Caulfield Cup (2400m) and believes that the four-year-old is worthy of being given a maiden opportunity at the highest level of racing.
“I don’t have to change him, I just want him in that same form,” McEvoy told Racing Ahead this morning.
“He will just go very easy through the week.
“Corey Brown takes the ride and I am very pleased to have Corey on.
“I think that he is a genuine Group 2 horse that is in a Group 1 race with 52 kilograms.
“The horse is fit, he is well and he is really ready to go.
“That is the way that he races, he races on the pace, and that would be his normal style.”
Big Memory received a lovely run into the Herbert Power Stakes just behind the speed, but he made things difficult for himself when he veered out off the rails and got on his wrong leg coming around the turn.
The four-year-old was able to overcome the issue in the final stages of the race to score a tough win and McEvoy revealed that the gelding had never previously had an issue getting on his right leg.
“He really surprised us when he lost his rudder on the turn,” McEvoy said.
“Tommy Berry wasn’t overly worried and he said that Gai’s horse (Bonfire) just wanted to get off the rail and he just wanted to go with him.
“He got on his wrong leg and took him a long time to get it right, but he got it right in the end.
“He is a very tractable horse.”
Big Memory is currently available at Caulfield Cup odds of $21 to join Master O’Reilly (2007) as the only horse in the past 30 years to complete the Herbert Power Stakes/Caulfield Cup double and he has moved up the Melbourne Cup order of entry after being awarded a 2 kilogram penalty by Racing Victoria Chief Handicapper Greg Carpenter.
