McEvoy keen to test Affirmation

Monday 18 August 2014, 6:37pm

Tony McEvoy is keen for Affirmation to have a decent hit-out on Tuesday morning ahead of the Up And Coming Stakes and hopes wet weather doesn't foil his plans.

An impressive last-start winner over 1400m at Caulfield, Affirmation is one of 13 nominations for Saturday's Up And Coming Stakes (1300m) at Randwick and McEvoy is looking to use the Group Three race to test the gelding's Golden Rose prospects.

McEvoy said he would monitor how Affirmation works on Tuesday morning before locking in a start in Saturday's race.

"He's got to please me tomorrow morning," McEvoy said.

"We've had an incredible amount of rain at Hawkesbury. I'm hoping I can get a good piece of work into him tomorrow and if he pleases me and comes through it well he'll run on Saturday."

Glyn Schofield has been booked to ride Affirmation.

Paul Messara has nominated Rosebud winner Scissor Kick and stablemate Panzer Division while the runner-up from the Rosebud, the Peter Moody-trained Better Land has also been entered.

There were 13 three-year-olds nominated on Monday with entries extended until Tuesday morning.

John O'Shea has Meursault, an impressive winner at the feature Hawkesbury meeting on debut in May, nominated along with Group One-placed colt Kumaon.

Affirmation is at $15 for the $1 million Group One Golden Rose next month and McEvoy expects Saturday's race to determine whether Affirmation heads that way.

"If he shows me that he's really competitive on Saturday in this class we'll certainly consider the million-dollar race," McEvoy said.

Affirmation was fifth in the Inglis Classic in Sydney on debut in January before being gelded.

He resumed with a maiden win in Adelaide and then finished powerfully at Caulfield last start in a late-season two-year-old 1400m race to win by three lengths.

"I thought he was ultra-impressive with 57-1/2 (kilograms) on his back, running better sectionals than the Bletchingly Stakes on the day," McEvoy said.

– 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 »