Andrew Forsman is relocating his Victorian stable after being granted 13 boxes at Flemington.
The Cambridge trainer established a permanent Australian base earlier this year at Macedon Lodge, roughly 60km north-west of Melbourne. But when Flemington made stables available via a competitive tender, Forsman jumped at the opportunity.
“I’m thrilled to get those boxes at Flemington,” he said. “It sounds like there were a few other applicants, so it’s an opportunity we have to grab with both hands and make it work.
“It should work out really well, with Flemington being so accessible and with all of the options it provides for trainers. Macedon was great, but it just seemed to be a little bit tricky to train some horses there. Flemington is more similar to what we’re used to at home in Cambridge, and it’s going to be easier to train different types of horses. You’ve really got a wide range of options available.
“We won’t be full all the time, but it’s nice to have a box or two free if we think there’s a suitable race for a horse from New Zealand.”
Forsman currently has the talented half-siblings Mr Maestro and Riproar based in Australia, and they are expected to be his first horses to use the new Flemington base.
Back on home soil, Forsman is preparing a team of eight runners for the iconic Boxing Day meeting at Pukekohe on Tuesday.
The headline act is Aegon, who is a +230 second favourite behind Campionessa (+150) for the Group 1 Zabeel Classic (2050m).
Aegon was one of the standout performers in the Group 1 TAB Classic (1600m) at Trentham earlier this month, albeit after remaining in the starting gates while most of the field ran up to 400m in a false start. Aegon dropped out to last in the 17-horse field in the second running of the $400,000 feature, then produced a flying finish for a close fourth. He clocked the fastest times in the race for the last 800m (45.78 seconds), 600m (33.58), 400m (22.24) and 200m (11.61).
“It was obviously a funny race, for a few different reasons,” Forsman said. “But he did his thing and ran home really well. We knew it was always going to be hard from the extreme outside gate, getting so far back and giving that much ground away, but we really liked the way he found the line.
“He’s trained on great since then. The query will be whether he can produce that same strong finish over a bit more ground. He’s hardly raced at all over this sort of distance – just one previous run in this race a couple of years ago (unplaced behind Tiptronic over 2000m at Ellerslie in 2021).
“That hasn’t necessarily been deliberate. It’s just that we haven’t really had the right opportunities to step him up over ground.
“He is a horse that often runs his best races fresh. Whether that’s a sign of a horse who can run a strong 2000m, I’m not sure, but there’s probably no better time than now to give him that chance.”
Mary Shan has been luckless in her last two starts, featuring prominently in stewards’ reports while finishing second in the Group 2 Soliloquy Stakes (1400m) and fifth in the Group 1 New Zealand 1000 Guineas (1600m). Forsman is expecting her to make her presence felt in the Group 2 Eight Carat Classic (1600m) on Boxing Day.
“She didn’t get many favours at Riccarton, having to make a big searching run and being very tight for room late in the race,” Forsman said. “But she’s bounced through it well. We gave her a week in the paddock after that. She’s looking good, has been working nicely and should run well again.”
Forsman had a high enough opinion of two-year-old filly Macaluso to line her up against Velocious, Bellatrix Star, Poetic Champion and Savaglee on debut in last month’s Listed Counties Challenge Stakes (1100m). She finished a creditable fourth in the strongest juvenile race of the season so far, and she will line-up over the same course and distance for the second start of her career.
“I thought it was a pretty solid effort on debut,” Forsman said. “It was a bit of a muddling run race and she just got left flat-footed when the speed went on. She’s taken good improvement from the run.”
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