Star galloper Antino (NZ) (Redwood) isn’t far off returning to Tony Gollan’s Brisbane stables to ramp up his preparations for a Melbourne spring campaign aimed towards the Gr.1 Cox Plate.
Antino, brilliant winner of last spring’s Gr.1 Toorak Handicap in Melbourne, starred in his home state during his most recent campaign with dominant victories in the Gr.2 Hollindale Stakes (1800m) at the Gold Coast second-up and the Gr.1 Doomben Cup (2000m) demolition on May 24.
Gollan told RSN Racing Pulse on Tuesday that Antino is scheduled to return to his stable next Monday (June 30) to start the build-up towards his planned return in the Gr.1 Memsie Stakes (1400m) at Caulfield on August 30.
Gollan said Antino had put on a ‘good bit of weight’ during his spell and ‘looks really well’.
“He stays in the paddock for three weeks, you work him out of the paddock for the next two, similar to when we got him back from Hong Kong,” Gollan said.
“He was only off a three-run prep in the winter, so he went out in good nick and we’ll kick him off in the Memsie now at the end of August.
“We’ll probably trial him down there (in Victoria), like I did last spring with him.
“We’ll get him ready as much as we can here, make our way down there and give him a jumpout or a trial at Cranbourne on the Monday week prior to the Memsie and that will be enough to kick his prep off and off we go.”
Antino finished fourth in the Memsie and third in the Gr.1 Makybe Diva Stakes (1600m) at Flemington in the first two starts of his spring campaign last year and Gollan indicated those two races again loom as the likely first two runs of his spring campaign.
And while Gollan has options after that, he indicated the Turnbull Stakes (2000m) could then be the favoured option at this stage on the way to the Cox Plate.
“There’s different options you can do getting there, but my mindset at the moment would be to go to the Turnbull and then three weeks to the Cox Plate,” he said.
And given what Antino was able to do during his recent Queensland campaign, Gollan is looking forward to giving the rising seven-year-old his opportunity over the 2040m at The Valley in the time-honoured Cox Plate in October.
“The way he handled the 1800m around the Gold Coast and the 2000m around Doomben, those races certainly have got me excited for the spring,” he said.
“I’ve always felt that he would get a trip.
“It was probably a bit unfair on him, he went to Rosehill in the Five Diamonds that day (in 2023) and pulled up sore in a foot, etc, etc…
“I went back to the mile then with him and at that good level for the next year, but I’ve always been really keen to get him back out to this trip and this is going to be an ideal spring to do it, the way that he’s come off this really nice winter preparation.”