Lautaro to stake claim in McKell Cup

Monday 22 May 2017, 4:22pm

Country stayer Lautaro upset some big names at the recent Scone carnival and his trainer is looking to bring him to town where he believes he can measure up again.

The gelding won over 2200 metres as a $21 chance on May 13, beating odds-on favourite Interlocuter from the Godolphin stable with horses trained by Chris Waller, Peter and Paul Snowden and Gai Waterhouse and Adrian Bott in his wake.

Albury-based Andrew Dale is now eyeing off Saturday's Listed McKell Cup (2400m) at Randwick as the preferred option over a race at the same distance at Sandown.

He has booked leading Sydney apprentice Andrew Adkins who was aboard when Lautaro won at Scone.

"We are heading to Sydney at this stage," Dale said.

"I just need to get my head around the depth of the race.

"It was never part of the planning but we are looking at taking him to Brisbane for the back end of the carnival and this fits in with that.

"All the better stayers are up in Brisbane now.

"He's a progressive stayer and at the weights I think he can be competitive."

Lautaro was one of 14 entries taken on Monday headed by the Anthony and Edward Cummings-trained Top Of My List who is Brisbane Cup-bound.

Dale's ambitions for Lautaro don't extend that far but he is eyeing off Queensland races at Caloundra and Ipswich.

"There's a country stayers series up there with the final at Ipswich," he said.

Dale believes Lautaro is better on soft to heavy tracks which he is likely to get in Queensland.

The trainer bought Lautaro from Kevin Myers in New Zealand where the gelding's eight starts were all on dead to heavy ground.

Another former New Zealander, Saturday's Rosehill winner Broadside, is one of two McKell Cup entries for Waterhouse and Bott, joining Multitude.

Premier Sydney Waller's three nominations include Richard Of Yorke and Great Glen who finished behind Lautaro at Scone.

– AAP

Latest News

Prime Thoroughbreds - We have a Host of Leaders in our Team

Tuesday, 29 June 2021

Prime Thor­ough­bred’s cur­rent rac­ing team is putt­ing to­gether quite a re­cord. We have 22 hors­es that have raced in our team at pre­sent. Six­teen of th­ese are win­n­ers in­clud­ing the Stakes win­n­ing trio Ru­bisa­ki, Fituese and Xtreme­time with Miss Di­vine Em and Miss In Charge run­n­ing 4th in Stakes races. This sees a stakes win­n­er to win­n­er ra­tio of 18.75% with a stake’s per­formed to win­n­er ra­tio of 31.25%. Th­ese are ex­cep­tio­n­al fig­ures.   More »

Freedmans land maiden Group One win

Saturday, 27 February 2021

Un­der-rat­ed fil­ly For­bid­den Love has emerged as an au­tumn car­ni­val smokey with a bril­liant per­for­mance to win the Sur­round Stakes at Rand­wick.  More »

Capriccio completes Damian Lane treble

Saturday, 27 February 2021

In a big day for coun­try-trained hors­es, War­r­nam­bool fil­ly Capric­cio has tak­en out the In­glis Dash for Daniel Bow­man.  More »

More news headlines »