Captain Out To Ravage Victoria Cup

Captain Ravishing. Photo by Darren Tindale.

GIFTED pacer Captain Ravishing has forced connections to change their plans.

In the moments after his terrific first-up third in last Saturday night’s $2.1mil TAB Eureka, owner Hass Taiba said the star four-year-old would head for a break after an issue-riddled preparation.

But Captain Ravishing has come through the run so well Taiba confirmed he would target the Group 1 Victoria Cup at Melton on October 14.

“I think we’d be crazy not to,” he said. “I know we’d talked about giving him a break, but he’s up at Sloys farm in Sydney and has absolutely thrived since the race.

“We might never get another chance to go for these big races, so Ahmed (Taiba, trainer) will head up to Sydney next week, and we’ll train him out of Menangle and get him ready to come back down to race at Melton.

“There’s a sprint race the week before the Victoria Cup. He’ll go there and then run in the Cup the week after.”

That race is the Smoken Up Sprint over 1720m.

“We’re so happy with where he’s at. I really think these next few months could be great for him,” Taiba said.

Captain Ravishing will also be a late nomination for the Group 1 New Zealand Cup in November, joining three other Australian-trained nominees: Spirit Of St Louis, Swayzee and Loyalist.

“Yes, we’ll late nom him,” Taiba said. “Why not? We’re so happy with where he’s at, and we might only get one chance to have a crack at races like this.

“We can decide after the Victoria Cup whether we take him to NZ or not.”

Taiba revealed circumstances rather than a daring plan led to Captain Ravishing going first-up into the TAB Eureka.

“I think people know we had some issues with him, and it was a real battle just to get him to the start,” he said.

“He had that setback with a foot and joint issues, and we didn’t have the chance to race him or even get some really strong trials into him.

“For him to run so well and really only get tired in the last 100m shows how good he is.

“It was only in the last 7-8 days before the Eureka that we really started to get him right.