Forsman hunts for Caulfield Cup rider

[Wandering Eyes]

Andrew Forsman has suggested Gr.3 MRC Foundation Cup winner Positivity (NZ) (Almanzor) will take her chance in the Caulfield Cup, but he is still on the hunt for a jockey to ride at 50 kilograms.

Forsman had initially been reluctant to throw his SA Fillies Classic winner in the deep end this spring prior to her win last weekend in a driving finish over Future History.

“We are very tempted,” Forsman said of the Caulfield Cup.

“I suppose when you have 50 kilos in a $5 million race you have to consider it pretty seriously.

“We bought her into work without being too serious about things, without any grand plans as a four-year-old mare.

“She is going a lot better than I thought she might be to be honest.”

Harry Coffey has ridden the mare in both runs this campaign and will again be aboard at her next start in the Gr.3 Bart Cummings (2500m) on October 5 – a fortnight prior to the Caulfield Cup.

Coffey has ridden 50 kilograms on eight occasions but not since being an apprentice in 2011.

“She is not going to get a penalty, so we are going through our options at the moment. In the next week or so we might try line up a few people,” he said of a Caulfield Cup rider.

Now a $34 chance with Sportsbet for the Caulfield Cup, Forsman didn’t rule out pushing onto the Melbourne Cup.

“It’s not an easy race for a four-year-old mare, or at least in this day and age, it might have been 20 years ago,” he admitted of running on the first Tuesday in November.

“She won her first race at the beginning of this year, so to think where she’s come from in a short space of time.

“When she was young, she was big and going to take time and you thought she will probably either be slow or make a good genuine staying filly, and it can be a fine line sometimes.

“And she’s just got better and better, that’s the exciting thing about her.

“So, if she keeps improving, who is to say, and Melbourne Cup wouldn’t be beyond her?”

It will be Forsman’s first time saddling up a runner in the major cups since he has gone out on his own from former training partner Murray Baker.

The duo had plenty of experience and ran veteran The Chosen One in three Caulfield and Melbourne Cups, while Jon Snow competed in two Caulfield Cups, Bonneval a Caulfield Cup and Zacada started in a Melbourne Cup.

Forsman said last weekend’s result was significant one for his stable, who rents boxes at Flemington.

“We only have a certain few horses over at any one time, and they are there for the better races, so there is no hiding,” he said.

“If things don’t go right, you only have so many horses to fire with half a dozen horses there to dance in the big dances.

“So, it’s great she has put her hand up.”

In other stable news, Forsman said Aegon would return to the races in the Gr.3 Moonga Stakes on Caulfield Cup Day, the last race he won two years ago.

Aegon tailed in the Memsie Stakes out after a promising first-up run in but pleased his trainer in a Flemington course proper jumpout last Friday.

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