Connections of six-time Group One winner Melody Belle are already eyeing up a spring campaign with their star mare.
The Jamie Richards-trained four-year-old, who is raced by Fortuna Syndications, capped an outstanding season when victorious in the Gr.1 Bonecrusher New Zealand Stakes (2000m) at Ellerslie on Saturday and will now head to the spelling paddock before returning in the new season.
“She trotted up perfectly this morning, the vet is 100 percent happy with her,” syndicate manager John Galvin said. “But we will do some precautionary x-rays before she goes to the paddock, just to make sure there is nothing underlying there.
“She will go to the paddock and come back in on the first of May and we will start to prepare her for the Lisa Chittick Foxbridge Plate (Gr.2, 1200m) again.”
Galvin said Melody Belle will follow the same spring path through the Hawke’s Bay spring carnival, however, the Gr.1 Livamol Classic (2040m) will be added to her schedule before a possible tilt at the Gr.1 Cox Plate (2040m) in October.
“This year with Hawke’s Bay our plan is to run in the Livamol, we didn’t run in the Livamol last year,” Galvin said.
“Our objective is to win the triple crown, it has never been done.
“With the Cox Plate, that would be her fifth start for that preparation. It’s three weeks after the Livamol.
“While we will nominate her for the Cox Plate, it’s not an absolute certainty that that’s where we go.
“We might freshen and resume after Christmas and go to something like the Waikato Sprint fresh and then there is the All Star Mile.”
