Ride starts up again for Team Torranzino

[Wandering Eyes]

The Gr.1 Tancred Stakes (2400m) looms as a possible autumn option for ever-improving stayer Torranzino (NZ) (Tarzino), who on Monday returned to work with Paul Preusker.

The Tarzino gelding’s return to stable life comes around two months since his fifth placing in the A$10 million Gr.1 Melbourne Cup (3200m).

Preusker was determined to reward his new stable star with a good spell after his career-best campaign and considered giving him a tick-over preparation without a run before resetting for spring, but was now favouring a brief autumn campaign.

“He’ll start work Monday and then we’ll just sort of plot away,” Preusker said at the weekend.

“I was happy to just put a prep together and go nowhere and spell again, but he hasn’t lost much.

“He’s in a good paddock with a couple of mates, so I think he’ll come up alright, and I suppose it’s now just a matter of whether we poke away in Sydney for a little bit.”

Torranzino’s autumn preparation will be grounding for another tilt at the Melbourne Cup and Preusker said it was unlikely he would get out to the 3200m of the Gr.1 Sydney Cup.

“I’ll probably leave that alone and maybe a Tancred or something like that, just a light staying race, and we’ll see what we can do.”

The A$1.5 million Tancred Stakes, a weight-for-age Group One race over 2400m, will be run at Rosehill on March 28.

Although six years of age, Torranzino stamped himself a quality stayer last spring with his Melbourne Cup effort coming after a win in the Gr.3 Geelong Cup (2400m) and a second placing in the Gr.3 The Bart Cummings (2500m).

He has six wins and nine placings from 34 starts with merely participating in a Melbourne Cup a dream come true for many of them.

“They’re all up and about, they’re a great mob of owners – most local people, although there’s a few scattered around – but they were just appreciative to get there and whatever happens is a bonus now.”

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