IT was mission accomplished at Caulfield for the pair of stayers, She’s A Hustler and Different Gravy, whose trainers are preparing for similar campaigns next year with both having aspirations of landing in the major Cup races next spring.
Both She’s A Hustler’s trainer, Grahame Begg and Different Gravy’s trainer, Henry Dwyer said they would target next year’s Brisbane winter carnival with the idea of using that as a springboard to the Melbourne spring carnival, which has been used successfully recently.
Unibet has both gallopers as $51 in next year’s Caulfield Cup. Different Gravy is also that price in the Melbourne Cup.
Begg said She’s A Hustler would be set for the Caulfield Cup after she came through her first test over 2400m with aplomb, showing her trademark toughness to win.
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“You have to have those ambitions,” Begg said.
“She’s a beauty, a winning machine. She’s never finished further back than second in 11 starts and she has seven wins. How good’s that!”
“We may go to Brisbane for one or two runs up there, something like the Q22 and then back down here. The Q22 is a great race and it sets them up for the spring,” he said.
“Today was going to be a big hurdle for her to work out where we are going to place her next year and how we go about it, as it’s all about next spring.
She’s going to be a six-year-old, so that was what it was all about, ticking that box today.”
Dwyer said Different Gravy would be set for the Queensland Derby after the son of Ghaiyyath made it successive wins when he took out the inaugural Melbourne Classic after he won the Batman Stakes at Flemington.
Dwyer said Different Gravy was learning all the time and getting better.
“Early doors he used to get on the bridle and get his head up when they came back, but today, with that tempo, but also with Mark Zahra’s hands, he didn’t do it as much. He really settled well in those mid-stages and really allowed himself to use that turn of foot,” Dwyer said.
“I think the further the better now that he’s settling. He’s earned a spell no,w but we’d like to think he’s a Queensland Derby horse in the winter.”
